100 Percent God


                               By Phil Scovell





          It  was the  shortest  way home  so  we  often walked  that  way.
     Besides, Danny's house was almost right at the end of the short street
     we walked and I could  cut through his yard and  out on to the  street
     that led to my house.

          They were playing in an open field in the grass when we walked up
     and stopped to watch.  There  were at least 8 or 10 little  boys, ages
     ranging from 4  to 6 years  old, wrestling and  rolling around in  the
     grass.  They sure were having a good time.

          "Let's join them," I suggested to Danny.   We were about 10 years
     old and thought it would be fun wrestling with the little guys.

          "Good idea, Scov," Danny replied and we  found a place to lay are
     books.

          Approaching  the boys  slowly, we  acted friendly,  so as  not to
     alarm them,  and told them we  liked wrestling, too.   Soon all  of us
     were  rolling around in  the grass.   Three and four little  boys at a
     time would  be hanging  from our necks  and shoulders, tugging  on are
     hands,  clinging  to  our  legs,  and  generally  trying   just  about
     everything to pull the taller boys to the ground.  Sometimes they were
     successful and  when they were,  even more little  boys jumped  on our
     backs and tried to hold  us down.  We laughed and  played for probably
     an hour, until the little boys had to go home for supper, and so Danny
     and I picked up our books and walked toward his house.

          "Boy,  that  was fun," Danny  said.  "Those  little  fellers sure
     worked us over.  Didn't they, Scov?"

          "Yep," I replied.  "They sure did.  I feel good, too," I said for
     no particular reason.

          "Me, too," Danny said with a grin.   "That is exactly how I feel,
     too."

          This  childhood memory  has come  to  my mind  hundreds of  times
     through my  50 plus decades  of life.   It has always  been a pleasant
     memory, one I  have always enjoyed considering, but  recently, it came
     to mind and almost stayed fixed in my mind.

          Finally, I prayed  one day and asked the Lord why this memory was
     surfacing so often.  I felt Him telling me to focus on the memory so I
     did.  "How did you feel?" I heard Him ask.

          I saw  myself, walking with Danny,  as we strolled  away from the
     place we had been wrestling with the smaller boys.  "I felt good; like
     I had done  something good," I said  to myself.  "I felt  like, as the
     bigger boys, we were able to enjoy ourselves while, at the  same time,
     I could feel how much the little guys enjoyed the fun of wrestling the
     bigger boys."

          I felt the Lord saying, "That's how I feel about you.  It is what
     I like to  do for you.  I  like making you happy and  it makes me feel
     good when you feel good."

          How much  do  you do  for the  Lord?   If  you immediately  began
     mentally running  down a list of the things you  do that are what some
     call "spiritual,"  then burn that list  because you won't need  it any
     longer.    Your relationship  with  the  Lord  Jesus Christ  needs  no
     improvement.   You can't make it better by  doing things for the Lord.
     You might feel better when doing certain things and that does not mean
     the things  you do  are  bad.   They most  likely, in  fact, are  good
     things.   There  are  no  good things,  however,  which will  improve,
     advance, amplify, enhance,  magnify, intensify, expand,  or otherwise,
     strengthen your relationship with the Lord.   In fact, He is not  even
     impressed with what  you can do for Him.   Why?  Because  Jesus did it
     all already  for you.  All you  have to do is acknowledge  Him as your
     only Lord and Savior.

          Now, about  this point, a lot of  Christians spiritually bristle,
     rend their clothes,  cast dust into the air, and shaking their list of
     things they do  for the Lord in  my face, as  it were, demand to  know
     what the Bible  says, yaih, commands that  we should be doing.   Well,
     let's list  some of those  things that most of  us think we  should be
     doing.

          One pastor told me that the only way  you could be blessed in any
     way  was to  tithe.   I  was taught  going  to movies  was  sin and  a
     spiritual person wouldn't do it.  Going to church, reading your Bible,
     memorizing  Scripture, attending Bible  college or seminary,  were all
     spiritual  rewarding things.   From  there, it  branches out  into all
     sorts of  areas, not  withstanding, full time  Christian service  as a
     missionary,  pastor,  seminary  professor,  traveling  evangelist,  or
     anything else that might be considered full time ministry work.

          My own personal list was divided, that is, in to good and bad.  I
     focused on  adding things to  my "good" list because  all those things
     seemed to  make me feel better when I did them.  Eventually, as I grew
     older, I discovered that my good list wasn't working as well.  I still
     pushed onward and upward,  as they say, and  my good list of  things I
     was doing became more and more difficult to maintain.

          When less than satisfactory feelings came from exercising my good
     list, I often referred to my bad list.  These were things I did not do
     for the  Lord.  That list seemed to be longer than the good list, too,
     and I was always  adding to it.  After all, I wanted  the Lord to have
     my all.

          Finally, I  crashed and burned in my own spiritual wreckage.  The
     horrifying  discovery I made at that point  was that there was nothing
     left for me to do.

          A  man  called me  one day.    We had  been praying  together for
     several weeks.   He had become unable  to work, had a  multiplicity of
     physical illnesses that seemed to  plague him, and spiritually he felt
     stuck in his relationship with the Lord.

          He asked my opinion about some job he was considering taking.  He
     had more than one job on the string but he could not make up his mind.
     I asked  him which one he wanted and he told me.  I said, "That's what
     the Lord  wants to  do; whatever you  want to  do."  He  almost seemed
     shocked.    I spent  time  to  explain  the  Scriptures to  him  about
     acknowledging the Lord in all our  ways and the like, and assured  him
     that Jesus was on his side and wanted to do whatever he wanted to do.

          Are you, too,  surprised that Jesus wants to make you happy?  Are
     you finding it  difficult to believe that  Jesus wants to do  what you
     want to do?   Have you lost that good feeling you once had relating to
     your personal relationship  with the Lord or  did you ever have  it in
     the  first place?   Are you having  trouble accepting the  Lord as 100
     percent God  of your life?   Let's find  out what is keeping  you from
     that joy and happiness.  Call me.


     Safe Place Fellowship
     Phil Scovell
     Denver, Colorado
     Mountain Time Zone
     WWW.SafePlaceFellowship.COM

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