A Short Single Sentence that Saved my LIfe

Written and published by Jean-Louis Mondon

This story takes place on the Algerian mediteranean coast in the city of Annaba and in Constantine, my home town in the mountains.

When I was 14 years old, in August, the hottest month of the year, while on vacation at my uncle´s beach house, I suffered a heat stroke as I fell asleep on the beach at noon time when the temperature can reach 120 F. I had suffered heat strokes before, but never as severe as that one. Back home in the mountains, during the following week, besides the usual symptoms, I experienced an altered mental state and behavior.

You have to understand a little background. At age 11, when the civil war started, I was a student at a Catholic boarding school hearing all these wonderful things about the love of God. I went to Mass everyday, early in the morning, even serving as an altar boy - at that time the service was all in Latin. I went every week to Catechism, to confession and communion after having fasted the night and morning before.

Each following year, after Christmas, Easter and summer vacations ended, I was so happy and looking forward to see my friends again. Instead, some of them came back with some bullet or knife wounds, some of them didn´t come back at all, their whole families massacred in terrorist attacks on their farms. We used to go to funerals almost every month. Some of my friends were tortured. One question that we discussed a lot with my confused friends looking for real spiritual answers to the senseless life we were experiencing was: "How could a loving God allow such horrific acts of violence perpetrated on innocent victims?"

Already living for quite a few years with untreated depression that was exacerbated by the heat stroke, I felt incapable of telling my parents what was going on inside my head, there would be too much to tell. Until then, the only outlet for my frustration and my pent up anger was to bang my head on the walls and acting out against authority at Catholic boarding schools. All I was thinking was to end the nightmare, by releasing the prisoner from my own painful silence. Without any help from family, friends, relatives or a mental health professional to share with, after reviewing all the possible ways of ending it all,  I finally went for the quickest solution.

I was holding my father´s loaded gun to my head, ready to pull the trigger when I heard the soft inner voice of God (through the Holy Spirit or an angel, I still don´t know) prompting me: 

" Jean-Louis, put the gun down, as long as there is life, there is hope".  

This is the single sentence which God used to save my life. He knows everything about you and is able to save you too if you find yourself in the same pit of despair.

Needless to say, I obeyed without arguing, so overwhelmed I was with the impact of that wonderful life saving divine intervention. What was only turmoil, self-doubt, and self-deprecation inside my hard head and my heardened heart made some room to an unexpected and quite surprising ray of hope.  This was before the time I started talking to my soul!  

A few days later, after recovering, life continued as usual. It didn´t get any better, in fact it got worse, but I am alive and doing well and able to tell you that there is hope and life in trusting and knowing the God of the Bible who listens, who hears, who sees and acts to rescue those like me who reached the end of the line, who face an immovable wall and cry out to him in despair.  

Since then, even going through worse ordeals, I have never reached the point that I wanted to take my life.

In 1966, after I became a born again Christian, I wrote a long letter to my parents finally explaining and sharing among other things, what happened that summer on the beach and how God intervened and saved me from death and hell.  Years later, as a legal immigrant to the US, he set me free from the bondage of sin, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, changing me into a new man through His great mercy and amazing grace.

This is what the Lord Jesus says:

⁹ “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. ¹¹ “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for^[a] a fish, will give him a snake instead? ¹² Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” Luke 11:9-13

 
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:13
 

Jean-Louis.

If you are not born again and desire to know how to be born of the Spirit to a new life in Jesus-Christ, here is a link that will help you understand the process which will help you to put your trust and know God your Heavenly Father and his Son Jesus-Christ who died for you because of his great love and care for you.
http://www.gotquestions.org/born-again.html

Finish what you started

Written and published by jean-Louis Mondon

Original written January 2017.

For the last few days I have had this thought going through my mind. Usually it means that the Lord is trying to tell me that it is worth looking into it, elaborating after consulting him of its importance, meditating on it and most important double checking like a Berean in the Word where this concept is found, the context of when, to whom and why it is addressed and if my own life experience and application of this biblical principle when guided by the Holy Spirit has contributed to my own spiritual growth.

Before the Lord saved me 53 years ago, my life was a mess. It was what seemed to be a succession of random, haphazard events and circumstances over which I didn´t have any control. My emotional and selfish reactions only made it worse. Whenever I tried to correct the situation ended up in more failures and one thing that brought me down more than anything else was the feeling of waste and utter desperation at finding some self-worth because of the total lack of positive and constructive accomplishments to look at and be proud of. Everything I touched and every relationship I had turned into one more proof that my  existence on this earth was a curse from an unjust and vindictive god that hunted me down and punished me for the simple fact that I was born without asking for it or having anything to say about the matter.

Needless to say, this kind of attitude doesn´t contribute to accomplishing much in life and the feeling was exacerbated when I compared myself with my friends, neighbors and all the great heroes  out there that receive the adulation and honor for their accomplishments and contribution to society. I wasn´t sitting on a pile of ashes, I was buried under the ashes of the death dealing blows of a self-incriminating conscience piled on the top of more judging and condemning by the society in which I happened to be born. 

Now, this is not wallowing in self-pity on my part, I just wanted to set the stage for demonstrate the extraordinary saving power of Jesus-Christ through love, mercy and grace He has for anyone who knows he or she is soul-sick, lost, hopeless and helpless with no way out and no one to turn to, but in a last act of desperation turns to the God that unbeknownst to him/her was faithfully and patiently waiting for the child to acknowledge his/her lost condition and come home to his real, loving Heavenly Father.

To summarize the above, I never finished what I started before I was 23 years old.

Then, my life started changing because I met the God who never changes, who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the End and everything in between, accomplishing what He said He would do, as I trust more and more in His transforming power. As I was reading the Word, I encountered some encouraging verses such as:

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. Philipians 1:6 

The Lord completed the mission His Father entrusted Him obeying Him even though He knew what agony and torture He would have to bear on our behalf. In John 10:17, Jesus declares: The reason the Father loves Me is that I lay down My life in order to take it up again. 18No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from My Father.”…

If the Lord obeys His Father in all things, should we not do our best to obey Him if he commands us to perform a servant´s duty that he has made us adequate to fulfill, gifted and empowered us to do. After all, the Word says that we are His disciples if we keep His teachings. To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31,32, then comes John 13:

 

 

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

 

 To be continued soon

https://thelightseed.blogspot.com/2024/08/continuation-of-my-2017-finish-what-you.html

Jean-Louis

The Seasons in the Life of a Christian- Brokenness - Purification & At the cross - Chapter I. (4,5)

Written and published by Jean-Louis Mondon. http://thelightseed.blogspot.com
(To read the preceding and following chapters, click on the left lateral bar on the numbered chapters under the title "The Seasons in the Life of a Christian" - Brokenness.) (Read next chapter) 

4. Cleansing through the fire of affliction

However, salt before it can be used, has to go through the process of being made pure. As soon as salt gets in contact with humidity, its inherent absorbing quality, just like a sponge sucking in water, causes it to be polluted by whatever impurity is in the water.
Talking about salt again, but this time in the context of people causing believers to sin, Jesus clarifies the issue of purity when He says:
“For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltiness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another. ” (Mark 9:49-50).

 How is the Lord going to make the salt in us pure? 

Although born again believers are not priests from the line of Aaron or Levites from the line of Levi, a valid answer might be: through the fire of affliction. Malachi 3:3 states:
“And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.”

According to 1Peter 1:6-8, the apostle declares: ” In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in various trials, so that the authenticity of your faith— more precious than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire— may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and rejoice with an inexpressible and glorious joy,…”

 
Do we have peace with one another?

Peace in the body of Christ does not just happen. Paul in Ephesians exhorts us to make every effort to keep unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. We already have unity if we are in Christ, the hard part is to keep it. Isaiah 48:17-18 states:
“Thus saith the LORD, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the LORD thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go. O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea”. 

Our Lord Jesus gave us a new commandment, “That ye love one another, as I have loved you.” (John 15:12). I believe that a great deal of what is hindering the work of God in our communities stems from the lack of the bond of peace in the Christians’ relationships, between spouses, parents and children, Christian brothers and sisters and churches of different or same denomination. (Here I am not talking ecumenical unity, but of the unity of the Spirit between true followers of Christ). Is the water of our city brackish? Is the relationship among Christians in our city one of love, peace and unity or are we trying to cover up the lack of reality in our lives, the hurts, discord, bitterness and resentment with our Sunday smiles?

Following the example of the prophet Elisha, how could we make the city water that came from the spring (the inner spiritual flow) sweet and the land (our lives) productive again?

By letting the Lord cleanse us (the bowl or vessel), and purify the salt in us as we gladly accept the purifying fire of affliction and trials without bitterness. The quickest way for salt to penetrate hard, unproductive soil is to be diluted and poured out on it and that is just what we Christians can do with our tears. 

Father, according to your Word in Psalm 56:8 your servant David asked you to put his tears in a bottle. May we see your hand in our affliction and accept its purifying purpose for our lives. We, your church, ask you through the power of your Holy Spirit to create in us a pure heart, release our tears that you have collected in these broken vessels and pour them on the dry and hard hearts that they might be softened just as your rain falls on the just and the unjust to soften the earth and causes things to grow.

5. The level ground at the cross
Then, the farmer must level the surface of the ground (v.25), so the seeds willall start germinating at the same level to make sure that the final crop will be as even as possible. We all have to start at Ground Zero:

 “at the cross where we first saw the light

and the burden of our hearts rolled away

 it was there by faith

we received our sight…”

Our Lord Jesus was crucified between the two thieves. But actually the thief that turned to Jesus and cried out to Him for help was himself  in the center of the battleground between two attitudes and choices that were represented at Calvary. The first one of bitterness, cynicism, mockery, empty bravado from the thief who rejected the precious gift of life, and the other one of forgiveness, indomitable courage, total acceptance of His Father’s will from the Lord Jesus who is and has the gift of eternal life. The ground was most fertile at the foot of the cross where it had been plowed by the soldier’s shovels who dug the hole and was watered by the blood of the sacrificed pure Lamb of God and the water of His tears mixed with the salt contained in His body. The ground was the same, the tears, the blood, the gift equally available to each one of the thieves, but one chose life in forgiveness and the other one death in bitterness. For us, the choice is still the same today. 

“Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water” John 19:34.

To be continued. Next Chapter: https://thelightseed.blogspot.com.br/2013/01/the-seasons-in-life-of-christian_1116.html