Angel Story 1: Lucifer and the White Moths

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Mark McMillion

The first experience I had with an angel is one I probably won’t relate right here and now. It was the most traumatic and basically indescribable. Sadly but righteously, it was with Lucifer. He came to claim me, as was his right at that point in my life. I won’t relate it all here as it is not easy to describe or explain but I’ll try to do that sometime in a post or a video.

But that experience when I was 20 was I suppose the pinnacle experience of my life. The Bible talks about “some saved by fire” (Jude 23), that is certainly true with me. Or like Jesus said of Thomas, “Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed.” (John 20:29) A lot of things are not as much “by faith” for me because the Lord somehow let me see things so I sometimes feel like Thomas in the Bible. Some people in life-after-death experiences have an angel of God come and take them to heaven. It is such an incredibly wonderful experience that often they really don’t even want to come back to this world. In my case it was the opposite. But more about that at another time.

Fundamentally, categorically, absolutely that changed my life. At that moment when I struggled with every iota of soul and spirit I had within me just to not be taken from my body, I said in my mind, “If this is real, then there’s supposed to be the opposite of this. There is supposed to be a God of Love, a God of Truth and Light.” So I “prayed” at that moment to the God of the Bible to help me not die right then. I put “prayed” in quotation marks there because we so often think of prayer as a subdued religious ceremony, with our eyes closed and our hands folded. My prayer back then was from the deepest place of my existence, with every ounce of meaning I had in me.

I didn’t die and go with the devil to hell then. I couldn’t sleep for 3 days because I didn’t have the faith to sleep. I didn’t know what would happen to me if I went to sleep. But gradually, very gradually some sense of normalcy came back to my life. But it had changed, utterly. Paul, speaking of how God delivers people from Satan said “Who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the Kingdom of His dear Son.” (Colossians 1:13)

For me, I wasn’t even there yet. I heard someone say one time about great sculptors, when they’re going to make a statue, the first just start off with a big chunk of rock. Whack! They knock off one big piece. Whack! There goes another chunk. For me, it took quite a few whacks before I was even ready to become a Christian. First and biggest was just getting me to understand that there is a real, true, spiritual world. Seeing Satan and being drawn out of your body by him for your eternal damnation will do a lot to destroy your unbelief.

But there were other angels. And I think I’m going to try to make some kind of rating system for all this. Angels are not always, not even usually, 10 feet tall with white robes and big wings. I’ve never seen one of those. And some things are supernatural but you don’t see the angels involved although you know they must be there.

Here’s one like that. This event with Lucifer took place in a tiny efficiency apartment near the University of Texas campus. It was so traumatic and all consuming that I remained in something of a condition or state for a few days where the spiritual world was closer to being my real world than this physically one we all usually consider “the real world”.

But a somewhat lesser or minor thing that happened at that time was that one evening, probably 2 days after these huge events, I was in my bathroom. And it filled up with maybe 100 tiny white moths or butterflies. They were very benign and non threatening and I remember at that time that they seemed like angels or that perhaps God had allowed this to happen in the physical to represent what had happened in the spiritual. It says of Jesus, “Then the devil departed from Him and angels came and ministered to Him.” (Matthew 4:11) I didn’t know that verse as I didn’t know any verse in the Bible at that time. But I felt all those little white fluttering insects were symbolic of angels who’d come to be with me after I’d turned from my evil ways and had chosen the God of Abraham rather than the devil.

Bottom line for this first story: it was definitely an angel, just the wrong kind and the wrong one. He’d been allowed by God to come and claim my soul after I’d gone so far away from the truth and the light. As for the little white moths or butterflies, they weren’t angels. But God allowed them there right then to be a symbolic sign of the beginning of my altered spiritual condition.

Reason? Or the Miraculous

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Mark McMillion

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against reason. Isaiah 1:19 says, “Come, let us reason together” says the Lord. And it says that Paul “reasoned” with the Roman governor, Felix (Acts 24:25). But let’s face it, the devil has gotten in somewhere with the whole thing about “reason” in more modern times. Because it seems like 9 times out of 10, when people talk about reason, the implication is that we should forget about the miraculous. “We should depend on our own reasoning”, they say, “our minds and our intellect.” The idea is that there really isn’t anything other or better or higher than that.

That’s a serious mistake. It’s “throwing the baby out with the bathwater”. Or letting the pendulum swing too far in the other direction. It’s like what Jesus said, “These ought you to have done, and not to leave the other undone.”(Matthew 23:23) In other words in this case, we ought to use our minds but not to where we reject the supernatural and miraculous intervention of God.

Our minds don’t have to be considered our enemies. (Of course the unbelievers would hoot and squawk immediately at that idea there, if we were to even think that our minds could be our enemy.) But in the same way that our bodies can be our enemies if we let our physical desires and impulses take us over, our minds can be our enemies if we let our “carnal mind” (Roman 8:6) take first place in our decisions.

It’s a big subject but really important. Many people have faith in God, but it’s like they say, “Let’s not take this thing too far!” “Let’s not think that God can do anything outside of the rational laws of science that we all believe in today.” This seems to be the often unspoken faith of multitudes. So they limit God by their minds. It ends up just being unbelief or a very limited form of faith.

But as God so succinctly spoke to Job around 4000 years ago, “Should it be according to your mind?” (Job 34:33) Things were going really bad for Job. He’d been so good, really, and he’d tried so hard, sincerely. But then it seemed all hell was breaking loose. It just didn’t make sense! It wasn’t fair! And he was right in many ways; it didn’t make sense and it wasn’t fair, according to the natural, normal way that most people in their natural reasoning would look at things. But in the end it all worked out, totally contrary to how Job saw things happening and he ended up being doubly blessed.

In Isaiah 55: 8 & 9 God says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are you ways My ways. For as the heaven is higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Our natural reasoning and understanding might make it through some situations but those things totally fail at other times.

Thomas Paine, author of “The Age of Reason”

But “reason” came to virtually replace God long ago. “The Age of Reason”, as they called it. It looked pretty good and there were a lot of good points there. But what was the end result? In turning to exalt and embrace Reason, the miraculous, the supernatural, the living presence of God not only took a back seat, it was kicked out of the car and left by the side of the road.

It certainly was not through Reason that I came to faith in God. It was the miraculous. But how many people of faith, regardless of their religion, really are looking for the miraculous intervention of the God of Abraham in their lives in these times? For so many, their faith is subservient to their reason. And perhaps this is because they are partially ashamed of their faith and don’t want others to think of them as strange or out of line with modern times.

This is what I wrote about in “Will He find faith on the earth?” Jesus virtually predicted that at the time of His return, the level of faith in the world would be at a very low ebb. It was the utterly miraculous that turned me from an atheist to a believer, even before I became a Christian. And that wasn’t just something that happened long ago. You can read “God’s Little Miracles” to find a miraculous thing the Lord did in my life just a few months ago.

So I’m thinking about writing some articles on some of the things I’ve experienced personally, not stories from centuries ago but things that have happened to me personally, that hopefully will inspire faith in others to know that God is not dead or even sick. I think I’ll call them Angel Stories. Here’s one about an incredible experience I had where angels saved me from death when I pretty much deserved death at that time. It’s called “Lights on the Road”.

Faith in the miraculous should come first, before our reason. We need both to be well balanced. But the presence of God should have first place in our sight, not our own reasoning. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your path.” Proverbs 3:5 & 6

Red lights and the Sabbath

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Mark McMillion

I was out for a walk. I think it was a Tuesday. I had so much to do that it was really weighing on me. In Nehemiah it says “the people had a mind to work.” (Nehemiah 4:6) I guess I’m like that sometimes. I have so many things that I feel I need to do and they all seem to be within God’s will and the way He is leading.

But sometimes I don’t take a break. Or I have to make a conscious effort to do so. Also, I am not one who is really feeling bound in a legal sense to “keep the Sabbath”. Paul said “One man esteems one day above the other, another esteems ever day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” (Romans 14:5)

So I don’t have a real big thing about not working on Sundays. And I had worked the rest of the afternoon Sunday after I got back from church. But I wasn’t feeling really good. I just couldn’t understand why. I was thinking about all I had to do as I was walking down the sidewalk towards the park.

I finally just shot a quick prayer up to the Lord to please help me and give me some hint or nudge as to what was wrong. Immediately my attention was drawn to a bright red lawn ornament in a yard I was passing. It was the only thing red in the whole scene I could see.

I didn’t get it. So I “thought” to the Lord, “What does that mean?” Again immediately He turned my attention a different direction and down at the end of the street was a bright red stop sign.

“Stop.”

“Oh. I get it. You want me to stop. You don’t want me to keep putting my shoulder to the bolder, to take up my cross, to lay down my life and to keep sacrificing and getting things done for You. You want me to take a day off. It doesn’t matter if a bunch of stuff doesn’t get done today. I can do it tomorrow. Maybe I could have even just taken the day off on Sunday like You were talking about on the mountain with Moses. OK, I get it. Yes sir; good idea.”

And this has happened before. I’m one of those who don’t believe we are still under the Laws of Moses. If you want some real controversy, start getting into that subject. This may mean I’m an Antinominalist. But I’ll need to do some more theology reading before I’m sure about that.

But what I’ve found is that there are all kinds of good reasons and wisdom in the Old Testament law. Yes, I eat pig. But I sure want to know it’s been overseen by government regulations or I might get trichinosis. Pig was considered unclean in the Mosaic Law and there were oodles of requirements and commandments which all had a huge amount of wisdom and reason to them. So many of them were quite scientific as well, even though back at that time they might not have had the knowledge that we do now.

I’ve learned though experience that “if you don’t make an offering, sometimes God takes a collection”. If I don’t just take a day off once a week, I end up really getting run down and tired in the next few days. When the Communists took over Russia, they tried to institute a 10 day working week, instead of 7, just to get more labor out of everyone. But it didn’t work. We just seem to have some kind of inward clock that says we need to knock it off after around 7 days. Even if we are no longer under the binding legalism of the Mosaic Law, we ignore its wisdom at our peril.

Well, thank the Lord for the operation of His Holy Spirit. On that walk, the Spirit was there to answer my prayer and even use the only red things that I could see, first the lawn ornament and then the stop sign, to get through to me that it was time for a day off.

If you’re feeling you are no longer under the law of Moses and you’re a “free man” now, you’d still better watch out if you ignore the wisdom and will of God. You’re safest if you are operating with the directions of the Holy Spirit. Then you may still be able to be guided by the Lord. And that’s really what it’s all about. “If you be led of the Spirit, then are you not under the Law.” (Galatians 5:18)

Everything means something

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Mark McMillion

There was a funny song years ago by Simon and Garfunkel which was called, “At the zoo”. It went through all the animals at the zoo and with things like “Zebras are reactionaries, antelopes are missionaries”, things like that.

But then, strangely, the Bible does say that everything means something. Paul said “The invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead.” (Romans 1:20) Jesus is called in one place “the Sun of righteousness” (Malachi 4:2). Satan is called the Serpent and Dragon. We are God’s sheep. And on and on.

So this morning when I was out in the park, something happened and I knew that it probably was significant or had some meaning but I didn’t get it right away. I was sitting there on the bench and then right in front of me was this worm or caterpillar, seemingly suspended in the air. Then it moved downward a little. Then again. And I realized it had some kind of thread like a spider that was suspending it in the air that had been attached to a branch of a tree above me.

The caterpillar kept lowering itself to the ground and final reached it. I of course couldn’t see the thread that had been coming out of the caterpillar as it was so thin and transparent so that it was almost impossible to see. The caterpillar crawled off. So I was sitting there and I asked the Lord, “What does that all mean?”

Most people probably don’t have thoughts like that. But through experience I’ve learned that often you can get some significance from things like that. I wrote a story a while back about “Hawks and Doves” where these two birds almost flew into me on a walk. That happened about 100 yards away from where this did.

So I asked the Lord to please show me what, if any, significance could be there for this caterpillar with the invisible thread coming out of him as he lowered himself to the ground.

Here are the thoughts that came to me. We are like that caterpillar. Isaiah 41:14 talks about “you worm, Jacob”. That invisible thread that gets us across great gulfs, from the tree branch to the ground and seems to suspend us miraculously in thin air is the Lord. He’s in us and as we let Him out, we are swept along His thread. It’s strong to hold us but it’s also so tiny and mostly invisible. But also it’s sticky and it just kept coming out of that caterpillar effortlessly and enough till he got to his destination.

But then I thought, at the end of the caterpillar’s life on earth, eventually that same thread is what will be wrapped around the caterpillar and form it’s cocoon. It will be his casket, binding him to his death. But then, out of that cocoon which the caterpillar made from that thread that had helped him all his life, it will burst forth at the end of winter into a butterfly or a moth. From the death of being a caterpillar or wrapped within a cocoon, it will appear suddenly as a new and totally different life. But the silver thread that was there for the caterpillar during its life was also there at its death, to envelope it and provide a casket of darkness and protection where the miracle of transformation takes place and it comes out as a butterfly.

We who have the Lord have that thread within us, helping us bridge impossible gaps when we need it, helping us travel places we otherwise couldn’t. Or even seemingly suspending us in mid air. It’s inside of us. We don’t understand it all, as certainly that caterpillar didn’t understand it. I wonder if that caterpillar had to do something like “yield” in order to continue to let itself descend lower and lower to the ground, by continuing to let out that magic thread within it?

Like Simon and Garfunkel said, “something tells me it’s all happening at the zoo.” Or at the park. Or anywhere you have your spiritual antenna up and your eyes opened to all the wonderful world of truth and beauty that’s all around us and in a sense speaking to us. “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day it utters truth and night unto night it shows knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.” (Psalm 19: 1-3)

Cannot come down

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Mark McMillion

Nehemiah said to his sly enemies from the walls of Jerusalem. “I am doing a great work and cannot come down. Why should I come down to you and the work cease?” (Nehemiah 6:3) It probably sounded unreasonable, extreme, perhaps unsociable. But Nehemiah was not only filled with a vision and conviction about what he was called to do. He also knew how to recognize distractions and subtle attempts to get him away from God’s highest and best.

In approximately 440 BC, Jerusalem was in ruins, a virtual ghost town compared to the glory that it had been in the hundreds of years before its destruction. Nehemiah had received permission from the Persian king to go back to Jerusalem as the governor there with the specific vision to restore and build the walls of the city.

But then the local enemies of the Jews wanted Nehemiah to “Come down into the plain of Ono and talk to us.” (Nehemiah 6:2) Their cunning line of reasoning was, “Let’s talk this over, Nehemiah. Now be reasonable; we’re your friends and you need to listen to us.” Don’t get me wrong, there can certainly be a time to listen to people and discuss things. But in this case, Nehemiah knew that these enemies at the gate were utterly and totally “Wolves in sheep’s clothing.” (Matthew 7:15).

So Nehemiah boldly told them, “I’m doing a great work and cannot come down. Why should the work cease while I come down and talk to you?” (Nehemiah 6:3) Nehemiah was not tricked and duped by the deceit of the Devil. He wasn’t sidetracked and tripped off into a trap, lured by the lies of the Lucifer.

Where there is faith, reverence and obedience to God, the Devil is always going about in one form or the other to try to destroy God’s plan and His people. This is a constant throughout history and it’s shown in this amazing way in the book of Nehemiah. We often think of Satan “Going about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” ( I Peter 5:8). But, believe it or not, more often the Devil will go about as a sly, slithering serpent, like his temptations at the beginning in Eden.

In the book of Nehemiah, the enemies of God never openly, physically attacked the fragile remnant of the Jews who were attempting to fortify their city. Instead, it was all with words; doubts, fears, questions, accusations, whatever might be thrown against their faith was tried by the local enemies of Israel in an attempt to defeat the faith and reborn convictions of the Jews.

Often this is the Devil’s first line of attack. If he can dissuade you from believing and obeying God through his words which sow fear, confusion, doubt or whatever it takes to turn you away from your faith and obedience, then he doesn’t need to try any kind of physical attack on you. Like with Eve in the garden, the devil can just lie to you. And if you believe the lie, rather than God’s Word, Satan has won.

While the book of Nehemiah is a history book and not considered especially spiritual in content, there are key verses which show that the returned Jews were a chastened, humbled, believing people, focused on living repentant lives in obedience to the God of Abraham. Even a little verse like Nehemiah 4:6 “For the people had a mind to work” is a short glimpse into the regenerated soul of the inhabitants of Jerusalem as they banded together in thankfulness that God had allowed them, as He had promised He would, to return to their homeland and rebuild their capital.

And those words, “I am doing a great work and cannot come down” are ones that we too can claim, remember and even quote back to the Devil if need be when we are being besieged by temptations, allurements, doubts, fears or confusion that the Enemy of God throws at us daily to try to get us to cast away our confidence, surrender our joy and lose our crown to the words of Satan and the wisdom that is not of God. Don’t come down from the wall of God’s will and high calling into the “plain of Ono”! God help us all to stay strong on the wall of God’s will.

Miracles Per Hour

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Mark McMillion

I was thinking tonight about the idea of “miracles per hour”. I’d just told one of the teachers at school about what happened to me last week. I wrote up that and posted it here under the title “God’s Little Miracles.” So she said, “Wow, you were really lucky.” That’s often how people look at such things when they don’t have a life based on faith in God.

But it got me thinking about what happened last week. It wasn’t luck, it was a miracle. And I thought about how I’ve been in places where the “miracles per hour” were pretty high. But in other places and at other times, there really didn’t seem to be very many miracles happening at all.

And I sort of envisioned some place in the heavenlies where the “Angels’ Regional Command Center” is, or even the local command. It’s pretty clear from the Bible that there are different ranks and orders of angels and I can only assume they must have organization and communications of all kinds. And I assume angels must even be able to measure quite a lot of things that we hardly even have names for. Do you think they have some gauge somewhere that measures “miracles per hour”? Do they determine between “miracles that were recognized” and the ones that went unrecognized?

Let’s face it, there are oodles of miracles every day that we don’t recognize or that don’t appear to us as miracles. I drive 30 miles a day on one of the busiest highways in the US. Every day I get home safely, I know it’s because of the protection of the angels of God. All the things that don’t happen every day, the crazy drivers we don’t encounter, the germs that don’t take root in our bodies, so many things are part of God’s supernatural protect which we don’t usually acknowledge or even think about.

But at other times in my life, I’ve been in situations where there was a pretty high “miracles per hour” reading. And that’s fascinating to me. Why are some times and places seemingly more spiritual than others? I spent the summer of 1971 witnessing daily on the streets of Berkley, California and it was one of the most spiritual times, full of miracles, that I’ve ever experienced. The “miracles per hour” were really high and the friends I worked with back then just almost took it for granted that miracles would happen that day. The spiritual world just seemed much closer and more real, regularly manifesting itself, both the good spirits of God and the evil spirits of Satan. So many people were coming to crises and life-changing experiences at that time and for those of us who were working for the Lord, it was a very busy time. And I think the angels and their local and regional commanders were really busy, really working overtime, if that’s the right way to express it, because there were lots of spiritual manifestations back then. Another time like that for me was eastern Europe in the 1990’s.

In the early church, it says at times “many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.” (Acts 4:23, 5:12, 14:3) It must have been that miracles were almost commonplace and just expected daily, because they were happening so often. The “miracles per hour” meter at the angels’ office was really buzzing. Maybe they have one to register “recognized miracles” too? Those are the ones that not only help people but they’re also recognized by folks here in this world and we’re struck with awe at the power of God and our faith is increased, often dramatically.

But equally, and sadly, it seems our unbelief has almost a power to halt the Lord’s miracle working power. It says of Jesus, “He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.” (Matthew 13:58) Think of it. Jesus Himself was hindered by the unbelief he encountered in some people. But when He was to do some of His greatest miracles, He put everyone out of the room except Peter, James and John, His closest disciples with the greatest faith. (See Luke 8: 51-54) He created an atmosphere of faith around Him. Of course with Jesus the “miracles per hour” were just at the maximum since it was the Lord Himself here on earth in His ministry. But the early apostles carried on the ministry of miracles. And if you know anything of some of the great people of God after that, Saint Patrick for example or St. Francis and many other lesser know people of God, miracles were a regular part of their lives.

So often we’re like the ones of old, “their eyes were closed” (Luke 24:16) and we just don’t recognize and see spiritually what’s happening right in front of us: an astounding act of God. But He’s still very much the God of miracles. And you may find yourself in situations sometimes where the “miracles per hour” at the local angels’ headquarters is really rising. God bless you with faith for, and the eyes to see, miracles.

God’s Little Miracles

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Mark McMillion

Do miracles happen? Do angels exist? I’ll tell you what happened to me last night. You decide.

After my evening’s English teaching was finished around 8:30 PM, I was asked to be the last one out of the building and to lock up. But last night, when I set the automatic locking and alarm, it just didn’t work. The door didn’t lock. I was alone outside a building full of expensive equipment, located in the midst of a low income housing project in a high crime part of my city.

I phoned my boss to tell her what had happened. It went to voice mail. I looked around outside the building to see any familiar face from the school or the students. There was no one around except a tall African-American stranger in his twenty’s, talking on his phone 10 yards away. I asked him if he lived in the housing complex or knew who was in charge. He was friendly but told me he didn’t. I basically was at a loss as to what to do. I felt I couldn’t just drive off and leave all within the building open to anyone who would wander in overnight.

I talked a bit more with the African-American guy, the only person anywhere around. At length he offered to phone the city emergency number. I ended up explaining things to the police. They told me they could notify police that patrolled that part of the city that there was a door opened. But beyond that there was nothing they could do. I was really on my own and it was getting later. I phoned my very elderly parents to tell them why I wasn’t there by now and about what had happened.

As it got later and later, I introduced myself to the guy who was still there and had made the call for me. He said his name was Dontre. I was counseling with him and asked what he thought would be any idea. So he said I could try to go to the housing complex office and see if anyone was there. I was getting desperate and I told him I could try that. Dontre said to walk about 50 yards one direction, then go to the far end of that parking lot, turn right and farther down that way was the office.

I headed out, 50 yards in the dark, left turn and another 70 yards, turn right and I as I walked on, I could see the office up ahead. Then I heard a voice.

“Hi Mark!” No, it wasn’t the audible voice of God. But over on a bench in the dark was one of the teachers who teach in the English school I work at. I nearly dropped my teeth. I went over to her as she was for some reason outside in the very late evening alone, on her cell phone. It turns out she lives there at the housing complex. She knew how to get hold of the maintenance guy in order to find some way to lock the building up.

She and I walked back to the unlocked door. I’d only been gone barely 5 minutes but when we got there, Dontre was no longer anywhere to be seen. He’d been there on his cell phone for around 45 minutes right there before that but then he was gone.

“Mark, is that all?! You call that a miracle?! That was just happenstance, a coincidence!”

Oh, yeah? If you’d seen this in a movie, you’d roll your eyes and say, “Sure, sure; that’s so totally unlikely that he’s going to meet up with a woman teacher from his school out in the parking lot 200 yards away from the building in a high crime part of town late at night!”

For me it was a real act of God and His love and providence. I was in a fix and felt torn between my responsibility to my parents and my responsibility to see that the building was locked up. So that was one heck of a “coincidence” that I’d run into one of the main teachers in the school in the late evening so far away from where I’d been. She was able to take over getting the maintenance crew there to safely lock up the school and I could drive home.

And it’s funny how Dontre just disappeared like that, no? Angels do that. OK, I’m not utterly sure he was an angel. But if not, he sure was used of God at that time to really be a help to me. Earlier, while he was still around, I was getting on to the fact that the young man I was talking to was possibly not really a normal human being as he looked to be. So I asked Dontre, “What do you think I should do?” He immediately answered, “You should think about your family, always put your family first.”

I am certain that the Lord miraculously led me last night to get out of a difficult and dangerous situation. As for Dontre, it’s like the Bible verse that says, “Don’t forget to show kindness to strangers for by doing so, some have entertained angels without knowing it.” (Hebrews 13.2) And the whole event last night reminds me of another verse about angels. “The angel of the Lord encamps around them that fear God and delivers them.” (Psalm 34:7)

Spiritual Habits (Part 3) Prayer

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Mark McMillion

I’ll never forget when my youngest son was 2 months old. I was holding him in my arms when he looked me straight in the eyes, reached out his arms to me and gave me this tremendous hug. It was breathtaking, such love. Nothing mental, no technique, just something from the deepest place of the heart, the child reaching out in love to his father. That’s how prayer should be. Prayer is really what it’s all about. The reason Jesus came, died on the cross and rose from the dead was to restore our access to the Father, through Himself.

But just like my tiny son, you don’t really have to understand it. It’s ok to try to understand it and as we get older, our minds often come to the fore much more. But prayer is a thing of the heart. So if you don’t understand it all, don’t worry, you don’t have to.

Prayer is what God wants. He loves us and wants us to love Him. And the same way we love our parents or our wife or husband or children, and want to spend time with them and talk to them and hear from them, God in the same way wants that with us. That’s prayer. King David said we should “pour out our hearts before Him” (Psalm 62:8). What a great word picture, to pour out our hearts. And that’s how it should be. Just talking to God, telling Him what’s on your heart, your joys, your fears, your thanks, your needs, your observations, God can take it all and wants to.

And the same way it’s not work or a burden or labor to communicate with your children or your dearest friend, prayer should not be some laborious work. It should be the high point of your day, something you just wouldn’t want to miss for anything.

But maybe this is pretty new to you and you’re not too sure about the whole thing. Well, just remember, “God is love” (I John 4:8). He loves you. Jesus said that “God is a spirit” (John 4:23) and then the apostle John said that “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all” (I John 1:5). So the invisible, loving God of the Universe longs to have contact and a relationship with you.

Speaking of “contact”, there’s a movie by that name and there’s a scene in it where Jody Foster is trying to see if she can get some signal back from some alien civilization by means of radio telescopes. Here’s the clip from the movie where she first gets signals back that she knows are from a distant civilization.

That’s always reminded me of the first time I really knew and understood that there is a real God, a supreme power of the spiritual world who is signaling us and wants to be in contact with us. The same utter, unimaginable wonder, amazement and joy unspeakable that Jody Foster had when hearing those signals for the first time, that was how I was when I first knew for sure that there is a real God that the Bible has told us about.

So what follows next in the movie is that she and her team, and then the whole world, begin building on that initial contact and ultimately have “close encounters of the third kind” with the aliens. But for us who know that God is real, this doesn’t have to be a movie that we walk out of. This is the reality we can live in when we have contact with the God of Eternity.

So I hope you are trying to have daily “contact” with God, pouring out your heart before Him, and even receiving His “signals” back. Because prayer isn’t a one way street. God longs to communicate back to us.

It may not be in an immediate audible voice. But I can more than guarantee you that if you are talking to Him, He’s going to be communicating with you. He said one time, “Call unto me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things which you know not” (Jeremiah 33:3). And there are just oodles of promises in the Bible like that. In fact the Bible is just full of communication and interaction between God and His people.

And he wants to have the same relationship with you. He wants you to love Him and be helped by him and instructed and protected and strengthened and enlightened and blessed beyond your wildest dreams. That’s what God wants to do for you through your prayers and your time with Him.

It’s impossible to cover every aspect of prayer in such a short post here. Maybe I can write some more later or tell you about some special answers I’ve had to my prayers. But when it comes to spiritual habits, making prayer a habit and a primary part of your life is right at the top of the list.

“Jesus coming back? No way!”

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Mark McMillion

When I was 20, I’d sometimes meet Christians who’d talk to me about Jesus of Nazareth. I usually really enjoyed it. I felt I could always argue with them and usually make them feel stupid or embarrassed about their faith. Back then, I liked to do that.

So I know how nutty it can seem to some people when they hear about the idea of a person who died 2000 years ago “coming back” to our modern world.

I won’t tell you how I came to believe in God, that’s another story. But, if you’re not too sure about this whole thing and wonder how anyone could have such an eccentric idea, let me give you some information which you may not know. Maybe you’re a very rational person and like facts. Let’s look at some.

First, let me introduce you to something which you are perhaps not familiar: prophecy. Now, don’t run off. I said I wanted to share some facts with you. But the word “prophecy” may conjure up for you some crazed fellow in robes, running around shouting about the end of the world. Or maybe some strange mumbo-jumbo of predictions someone said was going to happened, when there was nothing really prophetic about it.

But what if there was a phenomenon of prophecy that consistently came true? What if there were people who really had a proven track record of foretelling future events and those events happened? Well, there is. And this is going to bring us back to our original subject, Jesus of Nazareth.

[By the way, one of the videos that I have produced is explaining the whole phenomenon of prophecy, against the backdrop of the history of ancient Israel. It’s called “An Introduction to Prophecy in History.” You can view it here.]

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Mark McMillion

Creeds and Deeds, Facts and Acts

Category Archives: The spiritual world