In the 1960’s and early 1970’s the Church of the Redeemer was the scene of a revival that became international in its influence. Graham Pulkingham, who wrote a book about the church, had a powerful experience with Jesus and shared it with a dying Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas. The Charismatic renewal hit. Miracles began to take place. Lives were changed. The arts broke out, music, theater, and more. Outreach ministries like a clinic to the 4th ward and other services were birthed. Groups from the church traveled internationally, and people came from around the world to experience or join the church.

I arrived near the close of the revival season. I experienced the power and beauty of the place and witnessed testimonies take place before my eyes which should convince any person that Jesus is real, alive, and fulfilling His plan and purpose on planet Earth. However, people were there too, with all their mess and mistakes. Perfection can be found in Jesus, but not much in the people who follow Him. Jesus invaded earth, but He did not erase humanity’s short comings. The experience the best and worst arrived in the same room at the same time because God was present with man, and man was present in his pre-heaven state.

I was both lifted and crushed by the experience. The demands of work and ministry were more than I could handle, causing my crash. Revival is a place you visit, but not a place to live. The crash was multiplied by a church counselor who did not understand what was happening nor why. His words were crushing and later proved wrong. He offered the best he had in a moment beyond his ability or understanding. The fail, mine and the counselor’s, taught me more than almost any other experience I can remember. It took years to walk out of that pit, but the process of walking out was an education I do not regret. The things I learned were more beneficial to me, and to others who’ve had to live around me, than the college education I later received which birthed a career.

One of the lessons was why the world and those in it suffer and need a savior. A Christian has to face the ongoing battle of realizing and learning about Jesus while hurting others and being hurt by others. The world is a broken place and individuals are broken in it. The best and worst of life exist in the same moments and the same locations. The bad pushes us to search for Jesus and to examine ourselves in the process of the search.

My testimony is the work Jesus did to turn a blind, deaf, angry, selfish soul into someone who is learning and occasionally operating in His virtues. He teaches me to care for others and not just myself. He teaches me about the kingdom of heaven versus the kingdom of man and how to choose heaven over man. He teaches me to realize my failings earlier, better than later, and to allow Him to work on them instead of defending and maintaining the failure. He teaches me about Himself who doesn’t fail, doesn’t give up, is there during the worst, and working for the best.

He is the manifestation of all the values I wish were in my life all the time, without fail, instead of just showing up in small bursts of inspirational living. He teaches me to appreciate the positive changes and not to give up during ongoing failures. He teaches me to look for the beauty He has created and He has available, even in the worst of times and the worst of people, instead of staying focused on the depression and sorrow of darkness that is always with us on this planet. He teaches me that faith is real and His truth surpasses all that man can create. He teaches enough about Himself and His virtues to show me that heaven is a real place and a desired destination.

I realize in my experience that anytime with Him is better than anytime without Him. My testimony is that I’m a much better person because of Him with the expectation that I create much less damage and harm when I am with Him. I see why the apostles followed Him around even though they often didn’t understand what He was doing and were confused by what He was saying. I learned and am learning that He is God, and I am not. Thank heaven!

Discernment is the ability to evaluate the qualities in any choices. The most personal and or important discernment might be between good and evil because that affects an individual person at a potentially eternal level.

There must be a solid standard for discernment to work. Many people choose standards which do not require moral and or ethical standards like the controlling values of money, wealth, prestige, power, and the like. False standards, or gods, are dangerous and can create tremendous levels of life and relationship damage. It is important to know whether a god or the God is the controlling influence.

Scams require discernment to see through them and not be trapped by them. Scams appeal to desires and feelings, not to standards of virtue that are greater. You see so many pitches for instant (or extremely speedy) health, wealth, appearance, power, or pleasure of some sort. The worst scams we face might be the lies we tell ourselves. “I can break _ (list any healthy life discipline broken) because __ (list any excuse you’ve ever used).”

Discernment teaches us to see who or what benefits from the program, sales pitch, or idea being presented. The detective movies always say, “follow the money.” Another way of checking for scams is the old saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, be assured it is.” The Bible is the best measure. This measure or standard can be applied to business, politics, relationships, and church.

Prosperity preachers are being treated like scammers because their messages appeal to man’s desired outcomes more than the preferences and purposes of God according to the Bible. However, any preacher or person who shares the gospel can cherry pick their preferred verses to make the Bible appear to say what they want it to say. The problem isn’t the Bible. It is the person distorting the Bible for their own purpose. It’s up to each person to know the difference: discernment.

It is important to protect ourselves from the scammers in this life and the scammers who misrepresent truth for their own benefit. “Is this the truth of God as verified throughout the Bible or the preference of man?” Is a good guiding question. It is important for each of us to know what is having a controlling influence over our choices. A critical life skill is discernment between the self oriented values of this world and the true virtues of God. Jesus is a proven standard and is verified throughout the Bible.

I’ve talked to many fathers who have a similar complaint about how children hear. Dad would tell us some truth that we children needed to hear and master. A neighbor would mention this truth in passing, after father had told us the same many times over, and we would come home with that truth as a sudden revelation. Dad would complain, “I’ve been telling you that for months,” and he had.

Recently, like many times before, I went to church and had the same experience. Ideas floating through my mind would be coalesced into clear images during the songs and/or sermon, and it was like I heard it for the first time. I can imagine the Lord, like my dad, saying, “I’ve been saying that to you for a long time,” and He has. Sometimes it is easier to hear it from someone else than to trust that my thoughts are being encouraged from heaven.

I have talked to many people, faith and non faith, whose ideas have been encouraged from heaven. Maybe it is easier for me to see/hear it than it is for them because the ideas form in their minds. They are aware of the thought, but not the source. I had an atheist explain his beliefs to me one day. He was all about life being random, but his love was order and organization. He perfectly described intelligent design of creation while saying it was all formed by random. He was saying one thing, but we were hearing different things. Order and random are absolute opposites, but he didn’t hear it in what he was saying. I think that he loved the qualities of God but just didn’t want anyone to interfere with the way he structured and lived his life.

Artists see beauty and want to have it, be it, create it. They accept that discipline is a requirement of the process. Christians perceive that God has invited them into His beauty and accept that discipline is a necessary part of the process. The beauty of God’s life is way beyond us requiring us to have help and leave the bad parts of ourselves behind. Non believers see what we believe to be wonderful as God the enforcer shoving His will and priorities down their throats. What Christians see as rescue, non believers see as having their boat torpedoed.

I find this confusing because everyone seems to love the values of God like love, joy, peace, justice, honor, truth, and the like. We all seem to be in agreement on one level, but not in agreement as to the source or the process for gaining those true values. The purest qualities of all those values only come from God’s warehouse. All other sources are like bathtub gin, pretty low grade and chancy, the difference between street drugs and medicine from the pharmacy.