The LORD had me sit down and write from start to finish this newsletter, I did not have this planned. He said go, and I did.
This yet again is Jonathan David, the servant of the LORD, pouring out his heart to all that will listen and adhere to this message.
I will not be going into specific details of my past, but an overview of a hard time in my life. God did pull me out of it, Praise His name. But even though I did not continue in that wicked and ungodly lifestyle. Somethings deep within, didn’t just go away just like that. They just stayed hidden while I was in my time of hurt and repentance. It makes me think of the fallen angels/demons during Noah’s time. When God’s judgment came upon mankind. Where did they go? I believe that it is possible that they went into hiding. The Giants, (the offspring of these fallen angels) and the evil creatures that came from them were destroyed with all mankind. Accept for the chosen family of Noah of course. But what do we see many years later? That the Giants did indeed return. Where did they come from? Did the fallen angels return? We know by the evil upon the earth and the Giants that were living during that time, that the fallen angels were back. You see, when God steps in our lives to judge,correct,discipline,and chastise us (His children and also not His children), the devil and his hordes have to flee. They cant handle His presence. Yes our God, He is a consuming fire!!! We wouldn’t be able ourselves to handle His presence also if it were not for His Mercy and Grace. Now that flame is inside of me, burning down deep in my soul. All glory and honor be to our LORD and Saviour Jesus Christ for doing that for us. The King of Glory.
I say all of this for us to recognize a pattern of work that God does in our lives. Today we will use my life as an example so that we all understand a pattern of work that God does at times. Of course He can do it anyway He wants to. Bare with me, I do not like to discuss this time in my life. But I think it will help us all.
After I was married in 2006. In the fall of that same year, I went to the States, seeing I was living at the time in the DR. I went to the USA to do some tent work to acquire a bit of money for my wife and I. There wasn’t much going on in the DR at that time. The mission, Mision Biblica del Caribe, that my dad started many years ago, had fallen apart. Not to say that men didn’t carry on the work of God. Because to this day, men and woman that came to Jesus through dad and mom’s sacrifice to go and preach the Gospel to the south side of the Dominican Republic, are still continuing to serve our LORD. But there was alot of backstabbing and deceiving from our so called “brothers in Christ”. Sometimes when you are in a difficult time, instead of picking you up, you get pushed down and shucked aside. I am not blaming anyone. It is what it is, God still used the destruction of a mission to lead us to another one. His ways are above ours, He knows what is best. But I must say, and I will speak for myself. That I was hurt. I always loved serving the LORD in the mission, it fulfilled me. And now it was gone. Believe me I tried my part to hold things together, my strength was not sufficient and never will be. SO yes, I continued passing out tracts and telling people about the LORD Jesus Christ. But I felt like a lone ranger. I still continued though. But the more we don’t occupy our time with the things of the LORD, we occupy our time with the things of the world/flesh. So when I returned to the DR in wintertime of 2006, after a few months of working in the tent business. I ended up getting into drug use, heavy drug use, well drug abuse. That continued heavily off and on for about 7 years. A few times I thought that I was going to die. And I might have, if not for the Lord’s Mercy and Grace which sustained me for His name sake. He always had a plan for me and still does. You might ask, but didn’t you start the G2 church in 2010? Yes, we did. So your telling us,(Jonathan David, a servant of the LORD). That you were doing drugs off and on for the first 3-4 years of the G2 Church? Yes, I am saying that. While I was also pleading with the LORD to remove these addictions from my life. I was also telling people of Jesus, passing out Gospel tracts, healing the sick, teaching many around the world how to help others and themselves to heal diseases, and so much more. I did notice that the more I did in the Kingdom of God and grew closer to the LORD,the more I would reject and reduce any drug use. So God was replacing in my life the things of the world with the things of His Kingdom. You cannot just stop addictions and think you will not return to them or go to something else. You have to replace bad habits with good ones. And in my case God was doing just that, by replacing the evil in my life with His wonderful work. Don’t wait to be “perfect” to begin serving the LORD, you have to start right now, just the way you are. Then He will change you. Because if you wait until you are “ready”, you will never do anything for the Kingdom of God.
I want all to understand that while I was in these hard times and the LORD was changing and working on me. It was hard times financially and also there were attacks to destroy the G2 Church from within, from the people you wouldn’t expect. Dad even had to sell the house/compound in the DR to support the new mission. There was no steady money, we had to just push through, press on. And during these tough times, God was working on me in a tremendous way. During these tough times the evil ones started to go into hiding and God was freeing me of years of addictions. How hard but liberating it was. Then for years, we traveled, served the LORD and watched the work and the Church grow exponentially. When the evil of the world pushed at us,(like in 2016 on 20/20 ABC News). It backfired on them and more people came to see the truth of our mission.
The Lord was opening doors, that no man could shut. So the more we grew and prospered, the devil and his minions decided to come out of hiding, he saw it as an opportune time. With a little more comfort, or better yet more focus and purpose in my life. The devil knew he had to do something, because I/we were becoming dangerous to him.
So the devil attacked me with my presumptuous sins and the things deep within me, to try and destroy me. Things I thought were gone, like thoughts of the past, thoughts of guilts and regret, thoughts of how I am useless because who I was in the past and more started to come to the surface of my mind. Causing me to be angry, hateful, depressed, stressed and more. Thank God I didn’t go back to drug abuse, but it affected my mind and heart. The Love of God was not flowing through me as it should be, I was forcing it sometimes (not to say that the Holy Spirit didn’t move through me at times, He did). And believe me our strength does run out. Do you know the meaning of presumptuous? In the Hebrew, the word is zed and it means arrogant, proud. It is found in Psalm 19:13. In Psalm 19:9-14 David says-
“The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward. Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.”
See what David is imploring of the LORD? To cleanse him of his secret faults, those no one sees. Probably the sins deep within. And in verse 13, David is pleading with the LORD to keep him from his presumptuous sins, his pride and arrogance. So I began to do the same, little by little I asked the LORD to rid me of them. But until I pleaded and begged Him to help me, there would be no complete change. So our loving LORD had a plan, but it was going to hurt. He needed to do it so that I would be ready and prepared to fulfill His plan for my life.
Just recently, I am starting to see and accept what has and is happening in my life. There is a purpose behind God’s providential work in our lives. He is turning us into men of faith. It is providence (gracious provision) that takes us into the wilderness, it is providence that sustains us, and it is providence that brings us out. In the end it is providence that builds us into mature men. When God is building a man, He begins by taking his strong will and breaking it down. He takes his dreams and aspirations and crushes them. Then He redirects his life and begins to rebuild him. This is how God works in every man who will be used by Him.
Lets look at Moses a bit. From every view point, Moses was a man who had tried to pull off a great plan of his own and failed. He must have viewed himself as a great disappointment. But in the providence of God, He uses our failures as easily as our accomplishments. He seamlessly weaves our failures, our regrets, and our setbacks into the tapestry of purpose that He has set for our future. When we think we are finished. God continues to work His providential plan. It was Thomas Watson who observed that “God enriches by impoverishing…. God works strangely. He brings order out of confusion, harmony out of discord…. God often helps when there is least hope, and saves His people in that way which they think will destroy”.
For Moses there was nothing glorious or self-inflating in the wilderness, only isolation, depravation, and obscurity. But some interesting things began to take shape within Moses.(Note: Within Moses, as it is also happening within me.) He lost his cockiness and bravado, as well as his sense of self-entitlement. He learned the value of patience and endurance, the importance of taking life one day at a time, and the reward of serving. God’s providence is at work in all the details of your life, and He persists all through your days. He sees it all. He controls it all. He works in it all and uses it all for your good and the glory of His name.
The LORD is preparing me for something so big, that I cant even imagine what it is. And I don’t have to. All I have to do is serve Him with a humble heart, day by day. You will be spit on, mocked, treated like the scum of the earth and worse, but that keeps you humble. It works, but it hurts. He puts the pieces together, I just follow faithfully. Its all about Him and all the great things He has done and will do in my life is for His glory. I just get to take part and witness it. What a wonderful gift of the LORD that is. Being used by Him, in His marvelous plan that is. Don’t get me wrong, its hard sometimes.
It is an adventure, remember adventures are not always rosy. Don’t run from God’s plan for your life, face it as the buffalo faces the storm. Straight forward, Head on. It will be tough sometimes, but the safest place for your life is in His will. Let Him take over and watch the miracles come to pass.
May God bless us all. I would like to thank all of those wonderful authors that I take portions of their writings to add to my newsletters. You have helped so many lives, God bless you all. And thank you everyone for reading the newsletters, praying and supporting us during these very hard times.
Jonathan David
A servant of the LORD