As I continue telling you of my renewed Bible studies and of my understanding I ask that you remember that I wasn’t a Christian before my Tree incident. I was not an atheist either. I was just a regular guy living in America doing what all Americans do; which is pretty much being self absorbed in my own life. What I mean by that is I did the things I was interested in doing. I studied what I wanted to study. Did the things I wanted to do. Decided for my own self what is right and what is wrong in life. A patriot, a business man, an investor into stocks, somewhat athletic as I exercised a little with weights and practiced the martial art called American Kenpo under Professor Joe Doyle and Master Richard Planas (who also goes by the name “Huk”Planas). 
I wasn’t a bad guy then nor am I now. I didn’t drink but a couple of beers a year, do not smoke cigarettes or marijuana, no drugs of any kind. I also do not go out chasing skirts, and always felt white lies were okay if you were not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings but as a rule do not lie. Not a gambler either. As a married man I was enjoying my marriage and was happy to not have had any children. (I have been concerned about the economy of America for many years, long before President Trump became our Nation’s President and just didn’t want the responsibility of raising children in the world I grew up in.) I like to read and study just about everything. I have a nice library and have spent hundreds of hours searching the internet exploring just about every interest I have had. Also I had no debt and was not strapped financially. No sickness, no cancer, no heart attack, no nothing. Everything was just fine in my life.

Then came the Tree Incident and changed everything.

I had read my Bible before. But did not read it with the power of Grace which comes only from God. No I simply read it for myself. I had had some religion as a child, my parents had the family in a Methodist church in Reynoldsburg, Ohio. I believed in God, we called him Jesus Christ not God the Father. I knew the Christmas story and what Easter was all about. And I knew that the Bible was suppose to be read from beginning to end. I tried many times to do just that; read it from beginning to end. But when I read it I skipped over large sections of it, I just looked for the interesting stories that I could find, as I was not interested in connecting the dots of history. Certainly I did not cross reference the stories of the Bible with secular history and archaeology. That didn’t happen until after my tree.

To my way of thinking, the Bible was nothing more than the world’s oldest and first school book. A history book put together by Israel that taught the people of Israel where they came from and what their forefathers had done to get the Jews to where they where some 2,000 years ago. The Bible was outdated of course because I knew even the Jewish people did not live that way in my day and age. Since I wasn’t a Jew the old testament just didn’t matter to me anyway. Everything in the old testament was simply made up in my opinion. Written to move the Jewish people into the direction the Jewish government wanted them to move. Just that simple. 

None of that heroic stuff listed in the old testament ever happened. I knew that. Look around people, I would say, have you ever witness such crazy stuff today? No, of course not, that’s because it isn’t true. We have cameras and recorders and satellites in the sky. If there was a heaven we would have found it by now. There was no burning Bush, no crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites,  no walking sticks that turned into snakes when thrown onto the ground. The plaques of Eygpt? Never happened. I did not believe any of that stuff. I was willing to bet my life on it.

The new testament wasn’t much better for me, Jesus just seemed to be a teacher of good and he bucked the government of the Jews, so he had to die. Of course he was buried and some of his followers found out where he was placed, stole his body out of the tomb, and now everyone in the world believed he had risen from the dead. Yeah, right. If anybody believed that then I had some swamp land in the desert I want to sell ya. What about all those years between when he was twelve and than thirty? Where was he, what was he doing, why didn’t we hear about that stuff? Seems to me if he was the son of God and was around for thirty years we would read a lot more about his earlier life. What’s with this sudden showing up in Judah and claiming he was Messiah? Seems to me he would have some notoriety long before he turned some water into wine. If he even did that. . . 

And who in their right mind would ever believe a single word out of the mouth of the Apostle Paul? A radicalized Jew who believed his religion and government was always right. A murderer, and a man who self admitted he was like a chameleon, he would become in personality any type of person necessary to convince others of his beliefs. He claimed to be proud of his Jewish heritage yet ultimately changed sides of his loyalty, becoming like a Christian only after he was rejected by the Jewish men of the synagogues. They even stoned him for heaven’s sake. They knew he was a fraud. Of course the story on the road to Damascus was all made up. Paul made it up to explain why he switch sides to the Christian team. I figured he was so hungry for fame and fortune that when the Jews didn’t give him the notoriety he craved, he switch sides. So much of the new testament was written by Paul, who could believe it. Fact is, whenever any of my Christian friends mentioned the Apostle Paul or any of his writing I would immediately think a lot less of that person. Weak minded they were. Yes Paul had won some converts to “his” Gospel, but only a fool would believe in him and I wasn’t buying it. I was so complete sold on my point of view, that even after my tree incident, the Apostle Paul and his writings were still held suspect in my minds eye. His writing were the most difficult for me to sit down and read!

Believe in the bible? I could not bringing myself to do it. In fact, I used to tell people if they ever saw me out preaching the Bible then they would know I was slipping into dementia. It would be time for them to seriously consider sending to a home for the elderly. Because I would be losing my mind and going senile.

Of course all that I wrote about above was going on with me before I had my Tree Incident. Now I know God is real and His Son is real, Heaven and Hell are real and true too. (If your new to my blogging, know that I have written about my experience with God when I was out harvesting one dead Ash tree. Go to my blog site and catch up on what I am writing about before you judge what I have written here.)  And now I recognize what an idiot I have been.

Please do not take anything I have written herein out of context. I would hate to think people were misreading my words and using my words to convince others that God is not real. You see that is what I did when I read my Bible without having the power of Grace in my life.  As it was I took everything in the Bible out of context. I misunderstood the text, misquoted the text, quoted the scriptures out of order, and read into the scriptures my own bias opinions. All of which lead me to false conclusions. However, I believed I was right and I carried that conviction almost all of my adult life.  Easily for over 50 years of my life I believed I was right!  I thought I knew deep down in my soul that the entire Bible was just a con setup by religious people. These religious people were out to separate a fool from his money and nothing more. I was not going to be one of those fools.

But my LORD showed me in His unique way that I was a fool for not studying His Word.

Thank you My LORD.

Many years ago when I was newly married I began to study hypnosis. Hypnotism said that it could make me a better person. Self hypnosis seemed to me the key to unlocking my potential. And so I did buy some books and began to study the methods and in the quiet of the evening, when no one was around to watch me, I practiced self hypnosis. I was a smoker back then and I wanted  to quit. I was getting soft in the middle so I wanted the discipline to go workout with weights and to make myself stronger and more athletic. There were many ways I thought I could improve myself and in some small ways this self hypnosis stuff did seem to be working.

One of the things I noticed in my self administered hypnosis sessions was the ability to talk to myself and to also listen to myself. I noticed that the answers that came back to me were given audibly, as if I was hearing the answers in my mind as opposed to say… reading the answers.  I discovered I can ask myself questions and my own brain would then give me answers to those questions. 

This is kinda cool I thought. But I also thought or knew that there must be limitations to this arrangement. I wondered  what were the limitations of this arrangement? Is there any question beyond limits? To me it seemed obvious that I could not ask myself questions about subjects I knew nothing about. For I knew the answers to such questions must be wrong. If I asked something like; Where does gravity come from? My brain did struggle to give me an answer but without resolution. 

So there are limits to self hypnosis.

Sometimes I found myself exploring my own creativity, coming up with possible solutions to a question I knew I did not know the answer to but I would ask the question anyway just to see what kind of answers came back to me. It worked well in a lot of ways. I discovered things about myself that I just never would have thought about in any other way. Then one day I thought to myself this must be the way great thinkers arrive at their conclusions. Did Albert Einstein for example run these exercises in his own head to arrive at his conclusions I wondered? 

Yes, said the voice…  

Wow, where did that answer come from? Because at that moment, I wasn’t really asking myself one of my hypnosis type questions. I was just doing normal thinking. Like we all do in this world. That’s when it hit me that we do all communicate with ourselves all the time. We talk to ourselves and work out our own solutions on a daily or even minute by minute basis. All I had been doing with these self hypnosis sessions was strengthening the communication between my body and my mind. You might think of it like this: Connecting my conscious brain with my sub-conscious brain. Tapping into the computer capabilities of the human mind that I do not seemingly use and unleashing more of my thinking capabilities.

So I began running many question and answer sessions with myself. And then one evening I got to thinking about the voice that was in my head. It was clearly my voice. I heard myself give answers to my own questions. I also noticed that I could change the sound of that voice at will. I could for example think the voice into a deep sounding male voice or change it to a high pitched female voice and the answers I then received from my own questions came to me in that new voice until I switched back to my own voice. This was interesting to me at the time. 

I wondered then if there was also a separate personality behind the voice? In other words, I knew what I liked and what I did not like in this old world. I liked chocolate ice cream over vanilla ice cream for example. I wondered if the voice that gave me answers also had opinions about stuff that differed from my own. I could never really get a satisfactory answer about that. It seemed that the voice really had no special likes or dislikes. But this study did give me lots of other things to think about. Then one evening I asked the voice in my head a simple question, and the answer the voice gave amazed me and has stuck with me the rest of my life. Even today, I hear the answer to my question as if it was just yesterday. The question was: Who are you? 

The voice said; I am what I am.

Fast forward to today. I had just had my tree incident and had finally got back to rereading my Bible. I had worked through a review of Genesis and was focused on Exodus. I was excited to be reading the very words of a man, who lived some 5,000 years ago. I was reading in his own language the thoughts and actions he went through when he first met God at the burning Bush and afterwards as he lead the Israelites out of captivity from Egypt. I was reading Exodus 3:14 when I stumbled across the words that God told Moses after Moses asked Him what he should tell the people of Israel is the name of their God. The answer? God said: I AM THAT I AM.

I couldn’t move out of my chair. I had a tingling deep in my gut. The tears began to flow down from my eyes. I felt so ashamed. Here I was reading about Moses because I wanted to know more about how he interacted with God so that I could understand more about my interaction with God and I have just discovered that I had once talked with God before, many years ago. But was too stupid to understand. I felt so ashamed…I prayed for forgiveness real hard that night. And hit my studies with more effort than ever before. I wanted to know more about God, I wanted to know what else have I missed because I have been so hard headed, so stiff necked about the LORD of all CREATION?

Last night when singing at Brookdale Retirement Center in Mount Vernon, Ohio I mentioned that December is not really when Christ was born. A man in the audience asked me when I thought Jesus was born? I said that nobody knows but I have read most scholars think He was born in August. The man suggested that Jesus was born in the spring. I ask how that could be and he said, that according to our Bibles the Shepherds were out watching over their sheep by night. He went on to say, That the only time Shepherds would be out, at night, with their sheep is when the sheep are giving birth and that Sheep give birth in the spring.

I did not know that sheep give birth in the spring nor did I recognize the reason why the shepherds were in the field keeping watch over their flocks by night. Jesus is the great shepherd who watches over His sheep. How fitting it is to learn that the Shepherd Himself was born as are the sheep, in the spring.

Now I am wondering about Jesus’s death and resurrection, did He also died and was also resurrected by God the Father in the spring?

I know when I write this next set of words that some of you will shut me down. As soon as I write what you disagree with, many of you will click another link and be gone. I sincerely hope and also do pray that one day you will see for yourself the error of your way and come back to this blog and begin reading again about what I write next.

The greatest gift we can ever give someone is the gift that comes to them through knowing Jesus Christ. To find someone who has not accepted Jesus as their LORD and Master and show them what it means to repent of their current and former life and to come to Jesus is simply the best gift we can give another. There is no greater gift of Love that can be given. To show another person that all the mistakes they have ever made with their life can be forgiven and forgotten and that they can start over their life with a completely cleaned history, such as is given to a new born baby is just fabulous.

This gift from God through the gift giver’s effort, is going to remove every self criticism the recipient has ever had. God is going to remove these criticisms right out of their life. Every error they have made is forgotten too. Once a person comes to Jesus Christ their past just disappears from both themselves and from the memory of God, the Creator of us all. Those who will come to Christ will be as if reborn. Given back their life to start over anew and also given the ability and guidance needed to live well into the future by learning the ways of God through proper Bible usage.

No person can clean up their life on their own. They do not have the ability to fix themselves. No matter how many Psychologists or Psychiatrist they visit, no matter how many religious people they interview, no matter how much drinking or pill taking they indulge in, no matter how much discipline they force themselves to do, they cannot clean their past with their own will. They cannot become a new creature, turn over a new leaf as they say, and just become a new person. Why? Because they lack the Spirit that comes only from God. Without this Spirit, all things remain as they are. These people will go to their death haunted by their past. 

All the people that think they can make themselves perfect will continue fail and to make errors. All those who think they can pick themselves up by their bootstraps and change their own lives will never be emotionally happy with themselves. They will continue to remember all their past and will continue to suffer because of that past. (A past that could have just occurred an hour ago.) God will not help them. God has said (Genesis 4:7) that you can do things His way or you can go your own way but you go it your own way you will go it alone without Him. In short, all these people continue to sin. They cannot help but fail. They have not the power that comes from God.

Sin is controlled through the power of the Spirit that comes from God.

God, through His Son Jesus Christ, will only send His Spirit to a person when that person accepts Jesus Christ as their LORD.

The greatest gift one person can give another is the gift that comes from knowing Jesus Christ our Saviour.

“You have studied everything else; Now study Me!”

Edited December 19, 2018

Those words written above came from God into my mind. I have told you in a previous essay that I know when God is speaking to me as what He says in my mind aligns very well with Biblical scripture and is different than what I would normally choose to think or do. I would never say to myself – “Now study Me“. That would be silly. Yet the words you read above have came into my mind many times since my Tree incident. They come from God. I am sure of it.

After I harvested the Tree and settled down into the new reality of knowing that God and Jesus truly exist. It was natural that I would begin to study my Bible. As I wrote before in a previous essay; I wanted to study the Bible. I knew from experience that there were many “stories” within its pages that I had previously rejected as being myths, legends, ancient beliefs, even Jewish teaching that I could now read and study to compare what was in them to what had just happened to me. I thought those stories would enlighten me, help me to better understand the tree incident. I was not prepared to learn things the other way around, in other words, that my Tree incident would prepare me to understand those biblical stories better then ever . . .  And come to accept them as they are and not as I wanted them to be.

The Bible study I thought might take a month or two to complete is continuing even today and will probably continue the rest of my life. There seems to be no end in sight for the learning I am going through. 

The Bible I use faithfully is the 1599 Geneva Bible and I use it because it was created before there were Christian denominations. I see in the denominational bibles words that appear to me to be used to slant the bibles towards the views of the denomination. Mostly this is found in the study notes. But I have also found denominational bibles where the text of the scriptures themselves have also been altered to prove the denomination. This is absolutely a no no in my opinion. 

Then there are bibles used by the Roman Catholics which of course reflects not only scripture but also the edicts put forth by all the Popes. No thank you to all of them. I will stay with my Geneva. It is hard enough to learn the words of scripture. I don’t want to read a modern bible and find later on that the words used in it were not God’s words but mans. When I get to Heaven, I want God to know I did the best I could to get things right. I don’t  want Him to tell me I was using a book of Satan’s while I was running around on the earth. . . That would also be a no no in my opinion.

The people responsible for the creation of the Geneva bible also died as Martyrs for God to make this bible a reality. They put everything they had on the line for God, for Jesus the Christ. I have no doubts to its truthfulness. This is THE Bible of the new world, and as I understand it, it came over on the boat called the Mayflower with the Puritans. This should still be the Bible of America, but we seem to have lost our way to God. All these people who wrote, published, distributed, and used this bible in their churches and for personal use died for these scriptures of God. I can do no less. I will stay with this text.

In my opinion all the other bibles have been corrupted by the hands of well meaning people, but corrupted just the same. I know the publishers say they are producing more accurate translations of the scriptures but the temptations put forth by Satan to use these translations and to get included and to use other outside ancient documents to improve the Bible’s so called accuracy can also alters the very words of God. This seems to be too much for sinful man to understand –  that Satan will cause false scriptures to be produced and to call these false scriptures as being THE Bible.

Mind you I own John Mac Arthur’s American Standard Bible, R.C. Sprouls Reformation Bible in English Standard Version, also the King James and even a NKJV Chronological Study Bible. These are great bibles, I do not honestly know if they are corrupted but I do know if you are going to follow along with me in my studies and you use a different bible, you will have some difficulties understanding why I write what I write because your Bible may say something at odds with my Geneva. Remember, I use the 1599 version not the earlier 1569.

Now, I was unprepared for how this new or renewed bible study would emotionally and spiritually effect me. Before; when  I read my Bible it was just another book. This is because I have read hundreds of books in my lifetime and I had read the Bible before. So reading it again would not be a new experience for me. I knew what to expect in its pages. But now; because I have a vested interest and I know God does exist and because of the super natural aspects of what I saw with the tree, these new biblical readings have become serious business with me. Reading the Bible is not just an educational exercise anymore because the words of scripture have come alive. They speak to me in ways I could never imagine before the Tree came into my life.

It’s a little like the difference between reading what it would be like to be in a really nasty car crash compared to actually being in that car crash. No one can adequately described to you how much pain and mental anguish you will have go through on your way back from near death. Words cannot describe going through the car crash and it’s aftermath. You have to live through it to fully understand it. 

Well, words cannot describe how my interaction with the tree effected my understanding of the scriptures. God was in the tree and God is in the scriptures. When I read the scriptures before the Tree experience I had one view of them. After the Tree I experienced a completely different viewpoint. I cannot fully explain to anyone else the Glory of God I now see within the Bible and nobody could prepare me for the new awakening I was about to receive from God. I just had to experience it for myself! As far as I am concerned Jesus Christ at the same time as He raised the tree He also raised me up from death in the flesh to a new life in the Spirit of God. 

As much as I would like to start preaching to you about Jesus Christ, I cannot do that because for me to preach I would be talking scripture alone without any of my personal antidotes mixed into the conversation. The word “Preaching” is reserved for the Gospel of God which includes His Kingdom and includes the Gospel of Jesus the Christ His Son. What I am doing in these essays is just about what has happened to me, I show you how God and Jesus Christ have effected me in the hope that my words will be a blessing to you from God in some way. But as long as I am producing my antidotes into these essays I cannot at the same time preach. You will hear or read the words of God in stand alone fashion. 

I will not dirty the works of the LORD by adding in the words of a sinner to them. God’s words are pure and righteous. You ought to read them as He, the great I AM, wrote them. With all dignity and with the greatest of respect. For they are the words of my sovereign LORD the Creator of all there is and all there ever will be. He is yesterday, today and tomorrow. He never changes. He is Truth. He is always right. He is God!

As I started to read my Bible I had to start reading it over from the beginning many times because as soon as I started to read a passage, my old opinions about what I was reading kept popping back into my mind. Decisions I had made long ago about the stories kept intruding on my thoughts. These old thoughts became so invasive that I could not focus on what I was actually reading. I had to put the Bible down for awhile. And that was hard to do because I really wanted to let my new experience with the Tree let me see the scriptures in a new light. 

I tell you I had to get really forceful with myself, I had to repeatedly remind myself that the Bible is true as I had received conformation that it is true directly from God Himself. The arguments in my mind got so bad that I needed sometimes to take a break from reading and walk around my house repeatedly going over the same section of scripture and telling myself over and over and out loud to remember these words are Truth. I tell you it is the hardest thing in the world to have a solid belief in some subject and than to have to unwind that thinking and to rewire your brain to accept another reality. 

In accordance with scripture I believe the arguments being put forth in my mind were from the evil one. He tried and continues to try to make me turn away from the scriptures. But he cannot win, he might as well quit right now, because God has shown me He is alive and therefore I also know Satan is alive. Now because I know Satan is alive, Satan cannot use his tricks on me and fool me like he could before, he will never take my God experience from me. I will reject all attempts by Satan to undermine the Glory that belongs to God alone. The scriptures belong to God and in them alone do I believe.

Even today as I read the scriptures with a clearer understanding, Satan continually tries to trick me into thinking back like I use to. I tell you his evil keeps trying to turn me away from being on solid ground with my LORD. I pray continuously for guidance and strength not to let evil into mind and for my LORD to shine His light on the scriptures so I can understand them as He meant for them to be understood and not as a mortal man would think of them.

What I was specifically looking for in my Bible early on after my Tree incident were stories about the men and women who were not out actively seeking God for themselves but found themselves face to face with Him in in an otherwise very normal day of their lives. Stories where the subject was confronted by God when they least expected it. I wanted to read in detail how God came to be known to them, what were they doing at the time and what they did about it afterwards. 

Now mind you I read all the Bible and I was no slacker when it came to reading Genesis. I study Genesis a lot and feel that there is little point of deep study of the Bible if you do not dig in to the bibles entire context. But after my tree, the first story I wanted to read again, slowly and with attention to the details, was the story of Moses. (Exodus 2: and Exodus 3).

MOSES;

Now Moses was a Jew. (I am not) We all know that he was Jewish as our Bible says so. He was a special child in that his parents put him up for adoption by floating him in a miniature Ark, a small version of the boat that Noah built. His adopted parent was a princess of Egypt and the nanny to the child actually was Moses’s mother. So Moses grew up being trained as Egyptian royalty with the finest education Egypt had to offer while at the same time being schooled by his mother to be an Israelite. 70 years went by and Moses found himself as an exile from Eygpt. Living among sheep herders in the desert, then one day he had an experience with God that changed his whole life. I wanted to study this man’s story very carefully.

Like me, Moses was an older man, he about 70 and I am 61 at the time of this writing, I was about 54 when the Tree moved. Moses was highly educated. (Probably much smarter than I am.) I am self educated having spent a lifetime reading the works of other men. Moses found himself working in manual labor, same as me. He was a shepherd and I am a carpenter. Both jobs pay little and offer much hard work, but they also offer up a quality of life that is simple and honorable for both of us. One day while out doing his work, living a normal life, Moses was tending sheep and just doing what a Shepherd does when he had his experience with God. I too was out doing my work, living a normal life, doing what I do when cutting down trees for firewood, when I had my experience with God. In the story of Moses, it is told that he saw a fire up on the mountain and that Moses had to turn toward that fire and climb up the mountain to get a better look at why the Bush was not consumed. For my part, I spent my time doing everything I could think of to figure out why the tree I cut would not fall down. Moses was focused on his task and I was focused on mine. Moses had an actual discussion with God. I did not have an actual discussion with God although I did learn a thing or two from the experience. Moses’s discussion with God changed his whole life, he went to work for God and 50 years later Moses died as leader of about a four million + Jews living out in the desert who were about to cross over the river Jordan into God’s promised land. My experience with my Tree also changed my whole life, but unfortunately for now, I do not know what I may be doing for God in the years to come. 

I so wanted to study this story at that time, I have read it probably 25 + times since I started this new life. Here are a few other things I noticed that are meaningful to me: 

Moses talked back to God. (Exodus 3:11)  This is very meaningful to me because I in my prayer life discuss what is bothering me as a newer Christian with God. As my story unfolds you will learn that I have often talked back to God. Sometimes the things I have said should have got me killed. But God allowed it through His Grace. When I read about Moses actually arguing with God and telling God he was not fit to lead the Israelites out of Eygpt, or that he did not speak well enough to be God’s spokesman, I am amazed that anyone would talk like that to GOD but also relieved to see that a mere mortal man could talk back to God and live. Greater still,  Moses did it while looking directly at THE burning Bush that was not being consumed. That takes guts in my opinion. To be standing there, on Holy ground, actually listening to a bush talk, knowing he was talking directly to God the Creator of all, and to argue with him? That takes guts as I previously wrote. In my situation I talked to a tree that didn’t talk back although it’s silence has been deafening for me ever since. God spoke to me without saying a word. I guess that is what signs are meant to deliver when they come from God.

Moses told God he was not fit to do God’s work. That takes courage, but has there ever been a Christian that you know of that has not said the same thing? Perhaps he said it to himself or to his pastor, or to God while in prayer that he or she was not qualified to do God’s work? Moses was really speaking for all of us. None of us ever feel we are really qualified to do the work for God we are called upon to do.

God told Moses he is the God of Moses’s fathers. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. (Exodus 3:6) The question in my mind becomes; Does this mean the God of my Tree is also the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? I believe it does. I claim the God of Moses as my God. 

Then we are told Moses hid his face from God: for he was afraid to look at God. Please remember there were no scriptures at the time of Moses’s encounter with God, Moses did not read somewhere to not look at God, it was Moses that wrote the book of Exodus that I am reading. So why include this fact in his retelling of his experience with God? We do learn later on in our Bible study that God shows himself as light. Moses spent so much time with God he eventually had to cover his head when talking to his people, Moses head or face eventually began to glowed as light! Reflecting the light of God. (Also, we read in the Apostle Paul’s conversion story that he too saw God as a bright light, so bright that Paul lost his sight.)  I think it shows that the light of the fire coming out of the Bush was brighter then any campfire we might envision for our own selves. Another reason why Moses hid his face from God could simply be from the fear that was running through Moses’s soul on that day. I know that fear, I had it too on the day my Tree moved. Yet I do not know how I would have reacted if my Tree had actually spoke to me. . .

I also find it interesting that Moses would not look upon the face of God, yet, as soon as God told him he was to go to Egypt and bring the Israelites out, as soon as God told Moses what to do, Moses argued against God. Right here we read what has often been preached in church, man thinks he is equal to God. Man seems to want to be in charge of his own destiny even while directly facing God. This is sin being showed to us in full force. Moses did not want to change his lifestyle, he did not want to go to Egypt, he did not want to possibly be arrested. So he argued against his own sovereign LORD and did so live while God was right in front of him!

I know this is sin because God Himself has told us what sin actually is: Genesis 4:6-7. Whereas God told Cain not to be upset with either God or his brother Able . . . Because sin is close by and is ready to jump on Cain. My Bible also tells me that sin is subject to man’s will and that man must control HIM!  Genesis 4:7. This teaching is the only definition given directly by God concerning what sin is. Therefore this scripture is the very definition of the word sin and it tells us clearly that the word sin is the name of a male. Could the word sin also be the proper name for the evil one? Him who modern man calls Satan? You decide, but for me the answer is yes: Satan’s proper name is Sin. It is Sin that provokes us to not do what God tells us to do. It is Sin that caused Moses to argue with God. This is important that you understand the importance of Genesis 4 because no one was alive to tell Moses what happened back in the beginning of time except God Himself. The first six chapters of Genesis had to be told to Moses by God. Even if the information was handed down orally through Jewish customs, it still came from God because the scripture tells us it did.

Many modern bibles have altered the scripture of Genesis 4. These new bibles say Sin is an it. “They” say this because the word it fits better with the traditions of the church. The Church has always considered sin as being an attitude. Something that with proper education man can learn to alter. By using the word sin like that they are free to label anything they want as being a sin or being sinful behavior. It is helpful they think to understanding the whole of the Bible. Helpful in their translations of the scriptures. But to change the scripture and a scripture recorded as God’s own words, into something man wants is, well, sinful. And I can think of only one entity that wants to change God’s words into his own. . .

I think I have written enough in this essay. I now want to take a little break and take some time to clear my mind. Moses will continue in my next essay as will my sharing with you the torture I have gone through and am still going through because of my new understanding of who God is and the reality of Jesus Christ.

I have written a lot these last few days about my experience with cutting down one dead Ash tree that would not be felled until a prayer was said. These words I have shared with you have been a sum total of all that I have experienced on that day and all that I have been silently shown by our LORD within my mind concerning the tree since the actual event took place.

I have written a lot of words to share with you this sign to me from God. This sign was/is a gift from God. A gift that has stopped me in my tracts and caused me to dramatically change directions with my life.. It has been very traumatic for me. I have thought of little else everyday for over 5 + years. But the tree itself is not really the point of this blog. Even though the amount of writing I have done may lead you to believe the tree is THE important part of my story. Or even THE most important part of my life. I assure you it is not. I am not focused on the Tree at this time for any other reason except to share the gift God gave me –  with you.

My desire, is for you who are interested in God and His Son Jesus Christ is to read my witness. To read my report. I want to help you develop your interest, to encourage you to move forward and join me in the Kingdom of God. If your faith is weak, I want to help you find strength to keep moving toward God. The second best way I know how to do this is to share my testimony with you. But the best way for you to move forward to God is to study your Bible scripture. You keep looking for God, it is important that you do because God is watching to see if you are interested in Him. (Please read: Exodus 3:4)

Just to let you know, I have no desire to create a new religion based upon the tree event. No new denomination is forthcoming. I have no desire to build a church. I wouldn’t even set up a stone alter on the tree site if I could. I have not heard any special instructions from our LORD and have no special insights that would lead me to believe He wants another church.. The tree was the silent testimony from God to me telling me He is real. The tree was for me and me alone. We, in Christian circles call this gift from God as being His gift of Grace. As I understand it, it is impossible to become a Christian without receiving Grace from God. Christians receive His gift of Grace in many ways, the Tree is just the way I received it.

And one more final word for tonight. I am receiving no financial reward for this blog. No compensation. It is not being written for money.

 

L.

This is a very important point; How do I know God was in my Tree Incident? I tell you I thought a lot about that very question for many days after I harvested the tree. I wondered if something else was at work in this event. Maybe Satan? Maybe Mother Nature? Maybe some “Spirit” contained  within the tree itself? Yes, and I even thought about aliens from some other planet. But after weeks of internet searches, looking at strange stuff on YouTube, and other junk stuff I settled on going to and using my 1599 Geneva Bible as my main reference source.

I knew that the Bible had lots of stories in it that were strange. When you read about Moses and a burning bush that is not consumed, or the ten plaques against the Egyptian Pharaohs, or the parting of the Red Sea you know you are reading some strange stuff. And to top it off, the Bible is the main religious source everybody has used since ancient times to understand who God is. Those people were much more dependent upon a God to help them live than we are today. They recorded everything they knew about the spiritual world and their part in it. Now at the time I knew nothing of the actual history of the Bible but I knew enough to not ignore it as a source for trying to figure out how that Tree did what it did.

If that reasoning isn’t enough for you who read this blog consider this; When I put my hand on the tree and started asking for God’s help, what name did I invoke? Do you remember? I said: Jesus, I don’t know if your Bible is true or not. . . I invoked the name of Jesus. I addressed Him by Name.

What else was answered within that prayer? Did I not get my answer in two separate ways? First the tree moved and in that one act, both guestions were answered. Yes, said the action of my tree, Jesus is true and yes, said the action of the tree, the Bible is also true.

This was so hard for me to accept. I tried everything I could think of to avoid acceptance of this outcome. That both Jesus is true and the Bible is true. Again, I knew that I was heading towards being a Bible thumper. I, at the time did not want this change in my life. I fought it off for as long as I could. But over the next two years of research, winding up with my full immersion Baptism, I came to believe the obvious. And I have become a Bible thumper, not a good one, but definitely I am out sharing the word with all, even those who will not listen. 

Of course I have received many blessings from my research and, whenever I got off tract with my studies or if I began to speak untruths as I tried to understand my Bible God would ding me in some small way to discipline me back to the right information. Literally God would cause me to stumble until I got back on tract. I will tell you more about that later. Those dings taught me more about God than did the stuff I researched. I have some strange information to share about this too when the time is right.

For now, you should trust and have faith that I am not lying to you in any way. I am speaking the truth and doing so in all righteousness. That Tree brought me to my knees and to my LORD. I hope I can, with the help of my Tree, bring you to the Lord as well.

 L.

 

Because God and His Son have been proven to exist to me. That is why I am doing these post. This is why I started this blog. Because I KNOW the truth that the existence of God is True, I KNOW He has a Son and that JESUS THE CHRIST is True. I KNOW the Bible is Truth. And what is Truth to me must also be Truth to you. But, perhaps you do not believe or are ignoring God. I cannot let that happen. You MUST know what I know. 

I am doing everything I know how to do to Glorify the Creator of everything that exist in the entire universe. That Creator we call God and who calls Himself Jehovah according to the Bible. But I have restrained myself for over 5 years from going large to the public with this information. 

Yes I have made it clear to my family and close friends what has happened to me. Yes I go to Church; Faith Baptist in Mount Vernon, Ohio. Yes, I sing gospel music in 5 nursing/retirement centers. Yes I have made a few postings to YOUTUBE.  Yes, I witness about Jesus to any of my fellow workers at Holmes Building Components in Sunbury, Ohio, if they ask. . . Yes, I do post on Facebook words that I consider motivational but out of privacy concerns I keep my friends list small, therefore my words reach few people. 

I have been playing smallball with the gospel of the LORD. He does not like this, I must change.

Yes, I work hard for Jesus, but I am not doing enough. I have been testing the waters with my toe, I have not completely submerged myself in proclaiming His Glory. I am simply human, I am scared actually of losing the world I live in, the world I am comfortable with. I am afraid to do what the Apostle Paul did with His life after the Damascus Road incident and go all out for my LORD. I have been afraid to be so forceful with people that they would come to rebuke me. I could lose my chosen lifestyle. Give up a lifestyle which JESUS says I must do – if I am to have a life with HIM.

But who am I that anyone should believe? I tell you being a Bible Thumper still does not appeal to me. But I cannot do what appeals to me I must do what appeals to God. What is DEMANDED of God is that all His Creation ACKNOWLEDGE and WORSHIP Him through His Son JESUS CHRIST. 

I look at my life and I think, I KNOW I am going to be a PREACHER. I KNOW this is true. Or an EVANGELIST. And I know that whatever I put my hand to for the LORD He will bless because He has already done this as I play smallball with His GOSPEL. But the LORD is not satisfied with my results and so I have been told to do more by Him. This blog is just a first step.

You have a part to play in GLORIFYING the LORD. You must read these blogs. You must ask questions if things are not clear. You must forward these words to people you know. You will not be doing this for me, you will be doing your smallball part for the LORD OF ALL. For JESUS CHRIST AND HIS FATHER JEHOVAH.

GOD DESERVES YOUR BEST AS HE DESERVES MY BEST. The words I speak in these blogs all are suppose to GLORIFY our LORD. If you see me glorifying myself, tell me and I will pray immediately to our LORD for forgiveness. This blog is not about me. It is actually for GOD AND YOU for  I know the LORD is true.

You see a lot of capitalised words in this post. They are in caps because they are important words. Do not ignore them. I tell you true, do not fear the one (people) that can kill your body, but fear the one (God) that can destroy both your body and your soul in eternal damnation. I am not yelling at you because I am angry with you, I am yelling at you because this stuff is important, I yell at you as if your house is on fire and you need to get to safety before it is too late. I am yelling at you to come to our LORD.
L.

Check mate and I didn’t even know I was in the game. 

You may think I am writing some of this material and trying to be cute. Wanting to write in a way that is attractive to you. So I can keep you reading my blog.  I tell you that I want to write accurate and true, that there is no room in this for joking around or making things up. When I write that I have been check mated by God I am quite serious. And as far as you continuing to read this blog, I know that God is directing your footsteps. He will have those He wants with him to read this, and enjoy it, and share it with others. This is what I mean when I say God, Jesus Christ is in control.

I have no way out of my direct connection to God. Not that I want out. No, I want in. I want to be closer to God, closer to Jesus The Christ.  But at the time of this tree incident, I felt I was doing okay. Not always achieving what I wanted to achieve but all and all life is good. I pretty much did what I wanted whenever I wanted. God changed that. He check mated me. Now my life is not my own. Now I know that my life never really was my own. God is Sovereign over all that He has created. I am owned by Him. The difference is; now I know it. Before I did not.

Now I think about God night and day. Everything revolves around Him. Yes, I am free to come and go as I want. But I take not a step, move not in any direction without thinking is this the right thing to do. Will God appreciate this. My life is my life but it is now a life given over to God. I do so willingly. He has shown His appreciation of my efforts through many blessings I receive daily. Oh yes, that is part of the walk with God. He takes care of things, even little things, that smooth out the road before me. I will tell you more about this as the years roll by.

When I moved around that tree stump and went over to sit down on it, I had a few minutes to think about what just happened. I needed to cool off, I was hot from all that work. As I sat there I enjoyed the cool fall day. I wasn’t cold but was cooling off, there was no wind, emotionally I was a train wreck. But the Sun was out and I was soaking in the warmth of the Sun even as I was cooling off from the work. I looked up and saw a glorious sky. Blue it was without a cloud to be seen. The grass seemed so green and the sky so blue and the smell of it all was wonderful. Those who fell trees know what I am talking about. The oily residue from the chainsaw mixed in with the fresh air, decaying wood from the sawing of the tree and the sense of accomplishment all seem to come together as if to say: Life is good.

So I started to think about how that tree moved and why. But those thoughts soon gave way to thinking about what I believed in:

 I use to think God was far off. I remember as a kid thinking that if I said a prayer it must take time to reach God’s ears. You know, leaving my lips and traveling across space on its way to heaven. As a kid I use to think God probably has a secretary, an Angel, that first receives the prayer and who determines the priority of the prayers. Separating the emergency prayers from the mundane. Giving to God those prayers that needed His attention first. And when He had time, He could answer the other prayers whenever He wanted. But the tree taught me I was completely wrong about all of that.

The moment I put my hand on that tree and started a conversation with Jesus, I was in prayer. I did not know this at the time. I learned it later. The moment I spoke out loud these words; Jesus, I don’t know if the Bible is true or not… God was listening. The moment I said I need help with this tree, God responded immediately by moving the tree away from my hand. There was no time delay. No Secretary Angel interfered. God was there and He acted. No time delay of my prayer winging its way to Heaven before reaching God’s ears. My tree taught me that even though I could not see Him, feel Him, smell Him or even accidentally bump into Him as I worked around the tree, He was standing right there beside me the whole time.

Now I imagine that Jesus was simply holding the tree in one of His hands, strike that, with the power of His Spirit God held that tree in place as I worked so hard to push it physically over. He was the cause of it not falling in the first place. Now I know God put those words in my mouth. Now I know God caused me to put my hand on that tree. Now I know God raised that tree up as it was falling. Now I know God balanced the tree on its cut base. God showed me He was listening when I yelled “Wait, wait, wait.” . God proved His existence to me when He stopped the tree from falling while it was still in mid air, stood it back up, without me giving Him further guidance. 

No further guidance: You see, all I said was; Wait, wait, wait.”. I did not say to the tree stop. I did not say swing left or right. I did not say reverse direction and stand yourself back up. No, I said none of these things yet the tree, from my words “Wait, wait, wait” seemed to understand , seemed to think for itself, to stop in mid flight, and go back to where it was. You see? God did all of that. I had nothing to do with any of it except to watch and learn from my LORD and Master. He did these things to prove to me He was real.

I will never be the same as I once was. Nor do I want to be.

Here is some other interesting things I learned from this tree incident. When the tree reversed itself and returned to an upright position it had nullified gravity. Isn’t this one of the first Laws of Science? That gravity effects everything. Nothing is immune to its effects? Are not all our scientific work equations based upon this scientific rule that work is measured by what we have to do to overcome gravity? Yet God, pays no attention to our silly scientific rules. He showed me He has the ability to “float” a tree in mid air and even the power to reverse its momentum and stand it back up without even breaking a sweat. Not only that, but Jesus has the ability to raise just the tree and not effect the me, the grass, the ground, or even the sawdust laying at the bottom of the tree. None of these things moved, just the tree. And He did it in front of my eyes without making a sound. He didn’t even grunt in the effort.

It has been 5 years since this tree moved. I tell you I have had to come to all the conclusions I have offered in this blog over this 5 year time frame, I knew none of this at the time of the event. This I believe is what Christians call Sanctification. That is, we start growing in the knowledge of the ways of Jesus when we first accept Jesus Christ as the Son of God. When we show our belief in Him. And then we spend the rest of our lives growing in the knowledge of His being. We are to continue to grow spiritually into the men and women of Christ Jesus. This takes time. 

In fact, after this tree incident took place I spoke of it to only two people and both of them do not really remember the discussion. I cannot explain why this bothered me so much at the time. I do know that I still did not want to be a Bible thumper even after the tree incident, which is why I started a private study of the Bible without consulting anyone else and maintained this study for over a year. Didn’t go to church. Didn’t preach to people. I just kept what I saw to myself until I could get a handle on it. Till I could be comfortable with explaining to others that which is unexplainable unless God is in it.

I know many of you will not understand how there can be any more to say about the cutting down of this tree, (which Jesus Christ raised back up onto its cut base even as it was still in the air and in the process of falling downward). After all, millions of trees have been felled since the beginning of time. The tree harvesting process isn’t that difficult to understand. But since God helped me with this tree and since He changed my life so completely during and afterward, it should not be difficult to understand why I want to share these details in detail.

To my way of thinking, God the Creator of everything has graciously announced His presence to me. (And also now to you – as you read this). I could go way outside my personal knowledge and suggest that this tree situation may be one of the ways the Lord is announcing his return. . . 

There are three other chunks of information I want to share with you: 1. How I came to use a Bible verse when I placed my hand on that tree. 2. What I was doing with my life prior to even reading the Bible to be able know that verse. And 3. I want to share what I have been doing with myself since this tree incident back in 2012. However, before I go into all of that, I still need to share my thoughts and deeds immediately after the tree arose.

So, I am standing back behind the tree. The tree has just reversed direction and is rising back up to it’s cut base. I remember how hot I was, sweat running down my back, arms and dripping from my face. I remember first feeling then seeing the tree fall away from my hand as my hand was resting on it’s bark. As I finished those words that I already told you I said,  you could not have excited me more if you had stuck my hand in an electrical socket. I was buzzed, shocked, afraid and happy all at the same time when that tree started to fall.

I almost forgot to jump back out of the way of that falling tree. But I did move away, and after arriving back at the same tree I had been messaging myself from, I spun around to see that the falling tree looked like it would hit my tractor and trailer. When I threw my hands up and yelled wait, wait, wait I was not thinking about who I was yelling at. I did not think about God, or Jesus although I was already mentally trying to figure out what just happened when the tree pulled away from my hand. But to say at that moment I was thinking about God would not be true, my analytical mind was already searching for a reason why that tree started to fall after I spoke a few words – when for the previous hour I could not get it to budge.

I tell you I did not think about God until I arrived back to the tree in time to see it stop falling in mid air and start coming back at me. Then I began thinking about God. 

I have cut down many trees. I am used to seeing the trees fall away. I have often seen the details of the bark of the tree getting slowly  smaller as the tree falls away. But I remember so clearly seeing the details of the bark getting larger as that tree rose back up towards me. It is weird I suppose, but that bark made an impression on me. I was staring at the bark, watching it get bigger as the tree came up, I did not even think to get out of the way if the tree continued past its upright position. Somehow I just knew it was going to stop. If I had placed my hand out as I did when I said those words to Jesus, I know that the tree would have stopped right at my hand.

So after the tree stopped moving. I stood there quietly and did not move a muscle. A tear did form in my eye as I searched for an explanation in my mind. But I had none. I knew my life had just been changed. I have played chess a few times in my life, I always lose, but there is a move called checkmate whereas the game is over. I knew I had been checkmated. Even at that early stage of this tree situation I knew I no longer was in control of my life. As I stood there feeling, not thinking, these thoughts it suddenly occurred to me that God was still with me, that He was standing there somewhere close by, and He was waiting for me to make the next move.

Can I speak candidly with you about this moment? This is the moment when this whole tree situation came to a head that day. The moment, when I knew without a doubt, I was talking to God. The moment when I would speak out loud to my Creator and knew I was doing so. Even now as I write this I feel my head start to hurt, tears are near my eyes, and I am so very embarrassed that even today I have not done enough for Him, all the good that I have tried to do since this moment I, like the Apostle Paul before me, count as dung. Nevertheless, God was waiting for me to say something. I could not just walk away.

A child of television I am, all my life I have enjoyed the actor John Wayne. No matter what situation he found himself in he always carried himself tall in the saddle. Never backed down. Even in the movie The Shootist, he went to his death in dignity. That is all I could think of in this checkmated moment. Be cool, be calm, don’t let on that your even talking to God. So, fake that I was and probably still am, I slowly got down on one knee, looked in the direction that the tree was falling (and arose from) to see if it was going to hit my tractor. Which of course it wasn’t even close to falling on my tractor. Then I stood back up, took a deep breath, slid my hands into my back pockets as confidently as I could and said these most stupid words, words that will haunt me all the days of my life. It’s okay Jesus, you weren’t going to hit my tractor.

The tree, immediately began to fall right back to the ground. I had not touched it again. All I did was step back a pace as I watched it go down. I knew it would not hit me. 

Even as I write these words to you, whoever you are, I must confess that as I walked around the tree on that day to take a sit on its trunk, I was not even then fully cognizant that I just interacted with God. No, my mind was filled not with the wonder of God but with trying to figure out how what just happened, happened. I was busy analyzing. Truth be told absolutely, I was trying to get myself out of a checkmated position. I had yet to accept the change to my life that God had brought.

I had yet to accept that God had won.