The store pt 4

[Karl Peters]

I guess by testimony just about the Lord asking me to open a Christian bookstore for Him is more like a book, but that is the way our life with Jesus Christ is like, is it not - going from glory to glory. And that is probably the reason behind the Lord asking me to write on this and keep doing so. Therefore there can be no shortage of testimonies, right? But does it not seem like there is a shortage of testimonies - and I am not just taking about on this forum but also when just talking to other Christians at church too.

I mean I go to church and if I talk to others, the conversation goes to how the latest football games went down, or how we feel about the politics of today. Maybe there is some conversations about our children, but testimonies about what the Lord is doing in our lives seems not to be what is normally talked about. Anyway, let me keep going.

The Lord told me some of the purposes that He had for having me open the store. Some were more general in context, but some were more specific. In general He wanted the bookstore to help bring His churches together. And one of the ways He wanted me to do that was to get a number of the really small churches together for an outreach at a small local park.

There were over 130 Christian churches in town with about 130,000 people, and most people in town probably did not attend a church. So there were a lot of little Christian churches between 50 and a couple of hundred people. Of course I just had a very small Christian bookstore and without hardly any sales, and not even making enough to cover my fixed expenses, I was working for free. Money doesn't last long that way, Never-the-Less, the Lord wanted me to get together some small churches for an outreach. So I started trying to check into it.

Let me just say that there wasn't much interest. There wasn't much interest. It turns out that Christian churches don't really take to doing things with other Christian churches all that well, and this outreach stuff was not my forte! I needed some help and told the Lord so. He in turn brought in a couple of interesting guys into the store one day.

One was kind of an older prison paster. I am not sure it was something official, but he at least considered that his ministry and had been at it a while. The other was a younger man who played Christian music, and had been involved in some small Christian outreaches before. The two just randomly walked into the store together one day and we got to talking. So I told them about what the Lord was telling me. I liked them, because they both understood about hearing the Lord speak to you via His small voice. And so it was organized, with their help.

It was going to be very small, because the city would allow us to use the park for a small fee, but they limited the number of people that could be there. If it exceeded too many people, and we are not taking many, I think it was no more that 50 or a 100 people, so how can we keep it small and still do it. It pretty much meant no advertising it, and hope the word of mouth didn't make it big.

Perhaps the two biggest problems was getting churches, even small one, to get involved, and the fact that we didn't have electricity at the park. So the biggest single expense turned out to be a portable generator for the younger man who played Christian music. From talking to the Lord, He was saying that generator was also going to be the most valuable thing, because it was going to let that young man perform in other places in the future. The Lord makes sense. He was not just thinking about a single event, but what He could get out of it in the future. So, a generator was purchased and the park rented, and we went about getting some help from some small churches.

Sadly, it kind of felt like we put some pleasure on some of the churches, but it we did get that little outreach going. The young man played some music, then we got a couple of churches to get some of their musicians to play a while to, and a couple of pastors agree to say a few words. We had some donuts and coffee, and not too many people came so the people listening we not too many. So did any good come out of it?

The kids that lived next to the park came out to see what was going on and bunch of them came forward at the request of one of the pastors in town and accepted Jesus Christ as their Saviour, and some of the small churches talked to each other. I didn't do much, because I still had to open the store and run it much of the day. I did get my mom to come by for a bit so I was able to be there at the start, finish, and a little in the middle.

So was it worth it? The Lord once told me, "Karl, if souls could be bought how much would I be willing to pay for them? A planet or a star?"

Ok - maybe it was worth a planet and a few stars?

It didn't seem like much, but I guess I felt pretty good and accomplishing even that small outreach that Lord asked me to go.

 

[Cassandra]

I guess by testimony just about the Lord asking me to open a Christian bookstore for Him is more like a book, but that is the way our life with Jesus Christ is like, is it not - going from glory to glory. And that is probably the reason behind the Lord asking me to write on this and keep doing so. Therefore there can be no shortage of testimonies, right? But does it not seem like there is a shortage of testimonies - and I am not just taking about on this forum but also when just talking to other Christians at church too.

I mean I go to church and if I talk to others, the conversation goes to how the latest football games went down, or how we feel about the politics of today. Maybe there is some conversations about our children, but testimonies about what the Lord is doing in our lives seems not to be what is normally talked about. Anyway, let me keep going.

The Lord told me some of the purposes that He had for having me open the store. Some were more general in context, but some were more specific. In general He wanted the bookstore to help bring His churches together. And one of the ways He wanted me to do that was to get a number of the really small churches together for an outreach at a small local park.

There were over 130 Christian churches in town with about 130,000 people, and most people in town probably did not attend a church. So there were a lot of little Christian churches between 50 and a couple of hundred people. Of course I just had a very small Christian bookstore and without hardly any sales, and not even making enough to cover my fixed expenses, I was working for free. Money doesn't last long that way, Never-the-Less, the Lord wanted me to get together some small churches for an outreach. So I started trying to check into it.

Let me just say that there wasn't much interest. There wasn't much interest. It turns out that Christian churches don't really take to doing things with other Christian churches all that well, and this outreach stuff was not my forte! I needed some help and told the Lord so. He in turn brought in a couple of interesting guys into the store one day.

One was kind of an older prison paster. I am not sure it was something official, but he at least considered that his ministry and had been at it a while. The other was a younger man who played Christian music, and had been involved in some small Christian outreaches before. The two just randomly walked into the store together one day and we got to talking. So I told them about what the Lord was telling me. I liked them, because they both understood about hearing the Lord speak to you via His small voice. And so it was organized, with their help.

It was going to be very small, because the city would allow us to use the park for a small fee, but they limited the number of people that could be there. If it exceeded too many people, and we are not taking many, I think it was no more that 50 or a 100 people, so how can we keep it small and still do it. It pretty much meant no advertising it, and hope the word of mouth didn't make it big.

Perhaps the two biggest problems was getting churches, even small one, to get involved, and the fact that we didn't have electricity at the park. So the biggest single expense turned out to be a portable generator for the younger man who played Christian music. From talking to the Lord, He was saying that generator was also going to be the most valuable thing, because it was going to let that young man perform in other places in the future. The Lord makes sense. He was not just thinking about a single event, but what He could get out of it in the future. So, a generator was purchased and the park rented, and we went about getting some help from some small churches.

Sadly, it kind of felt like we put some pleasure on some of the churches, but it we did get that little outreach going. The young man played some music, then we got a couple of churches to get some of their musicians to play a while to, and a couple of pastors agree to say a few words. We had some donuts and coffee, and not too many people came so the people listening we not too many. So did any good come out of it?

The kids that lived next to the park came out to see what was going on and bunch of them came forward at the request of one of the pastors in town and accepted Jesus Christ as their Saviour, and some of the small churches talked to each other. I didn't do much, because I still had to open the store and run it much of the day. I did get my mom to come by for a bit so I was able to be there at the start, finish, and a little in the middle.

So was it worth it? The Lord once told me, "Karl, if souls could be bought how much would I be willing to pay for them? A planet or a star?"

Ok - maybe it was worth a planet and a few stars?

It didn't seem like much, but I guess I felt pretty good and accomplishing even that small outreach that Lord asked me to go.

Well, I think this is wonderful. Even if one were saved,all Heaven would rejoice.

 

[Karl Peters]

Well, I think this is wonderful. Even if one were saved,all Heaven would rejoice.

Of course, but even I wonder. I write that because when I was about ten, my parents had taken us kids to church. While bored in church I suddenly felt a wonderful feeling like I was skipping stones on a river. Then the pastor said something about the Holy Spirit and asked if anyone believed they should come forward. Because of that strange feeling, and the perfect timing of it, I decided to go forward and accepted Jesus Christ and wound up being baptized. Yet that was the only indication I got of the Lord and His Holy Spirit for the next 30 years. God to me, had just been a brief feeling in a moments time. My parents continued to take us to church for several years afterward, until we got to high school and it became harder for them to do so. And never in that time did I hear anything about us actually being able to seek the Lord Jesus Christ and hear from Him ourselves. In general, the church presented the Lord as a 2,000 year old has been who might someday come back.

Of course, I am not sure what happened with those kids. Was it just a moment in the park and a feeling like they were skipping stones on a river? Yet maybe because God is faithful when we are not, that was all it took for the Lord to remember and faithfully come back into their lives some many years later. Would explaining that He speaks to us Today change anything for them and others who were like me and didn't know to seek Him and His voice?

 

[Karl Peters]

The Lord kept talking to me about using the store to help bring His churches together more. Indeed it was about that time, and just prior when my pastors had finally come into my store months after I had opened the store. During that time in the store they told me about someone in another church in town who was supposed to have died and who the Lord brought back to life eight days later.

Wow, that was an incredible story. I think it came about because of the large map of the city the Lord had me get and post on the wall of the bookstore. The Lord specifically insist I go down to the city offices and get that map, put it on a cork board, then put little flags at the locations of every church I could find out about. I think I found a little over 130 churches in town and flagged them. And apparently there was a man in one of the who had been dead for eight days and was brought back to life.

I wanted to meet that man. My pastors would not tell me at which church the man was at, so I started asking the Lord if He could help me meet that man. I don't know why, but I just wanted to me him.

The Lord woke me up one morning with an idea He wanted carried out. The idea was to go around the churches in town and see if I might be able to get orders from the churches. He said I could provide them with some material from publishers and such. So the Lord had me seek out three churches for the trial program. The Lord took me to the map in the store and told me to of course talk to my church, and He picked out on of the large main line churches, and He pick out some smaller church on the west side of town. I couldn't even get my foot into the door at the larger church, and I was the only English Christian bookstore in town. There was a Spanish bookstore and another Spanish bookstore not fat in the next city, but I had the only English Christian bookstore. It always amazed me how the Christian community was not really a community but a 130 plus little Christian communities.

Anyway, I talked to my church and they smiled while we talked. Heck, it had taken them some months to simply come by so what did I expect. And it was that pastor who I had been with when the thunder and the snow came as confirmation that I was to quit my job. It was ok. I was not depending on him, but rather was following the Lord instructions to me. I wonder what the Lord thinks about that?

The best response I got was from the little church on the west side of town the Lord told me about. When I called, an elder picked up the phone and just told me to come by the church and when the pastor would be there. And so I did. The pastor was not so accommodating, but rather it was back to that smile I had seen on the faces of the pastor at my church. Yet I meet a few other people while at the church. That same elder who suggested I come by the church on Sunday. Also someone who ran the children's ministry who felt he could use some material for his classes, and another man who wanted some Christian karaoke for a feeding ministry he ran midweek. He wanted it as praise music everyone could sing to.

The Lord did have me go to that church a bit. And the man wanting karaoke music for his feeding ministry asked me if I could bring some material so he could look at it and order from it. He asked me to come by during his ministry. And that I did.

When I pulled up there were about 30 chairs under some old large shade trees, and about half of them had people listening to him speak. I sat quietly down in the back and listened as he told how he had been dead eight days and God brought him back to life. OH, this was the guy!! The Lord had put me in contact with him, and I was just sitting there listening to a brief version of his story... the Lord is amazing. 130 plus churches with about 130,000 people in our town and within two weeks the Lord had answered my pray to meet this man.

I left the material with the man. He made His choice and showed up in my store to place and order about a week later. And while in the store I talked to him about his testimony, and he sat down and gave me the full and complete story. He told me how he had gone to the hospital with some mild chest pain, then passed out. Then eight days later he came back to life.

Apparently they had confirmed his death, put him a draw in the morgue at the hospital. Had tried to get hold of a relative but it took a while for that. Then one day the person in thee morgue opened up the drawer and had left him like that for a bit. When that person came back he was found flopping around on the floor. That cause an alert in the hospital and when he woke up eight days later he suddenly found himself with a bunch of tubes and things on him. Being confused, he got up and grabbed all the tubes and walked to the door. Opening the door he saw a man inside the room. It took him a bit to realize that he was the man in the mirror. It didn't look like him at all, was his thinking.

Afterwards he found out that Christians all over the world had been praying for him. Apparently some people at his church had put out prayer requests all over the internet, and it got lots of responses.

Another thing he told me was that while he was dead, the Lord had talked to him and told him that the Lord was going to do three things for him. The Lord was going to give him a ministry. The Lord was going to give him a house. And the Lord was going to give him a marriage.

continued on next post.

 

[Karl Peters]

The man continued giving me the full story of how God had brought him back to life, and with promises that God was fulfilling.

He was a warehouse worker at a food distribution warehouse, when the Lord had asked me to help out with the small food distribution ministry at the church. An elderly lady had been running it and she could use some help. Then he had the idea of asking his employer if they might have some donations for the ministry. They told him that they could give him some donations, and they provided him with a huge amount. So he asked the lady where it should go and he was told to just bring it by her house. He tried to explain that is was a lot, but she insisted to just bring in by her house. He had to get a lot of people with vans to take the food there, and he explained out her house was stuffed with food to give away. And that really got him involved with that ministry

A while late, I think he said a year or two, the older lady turn the whole ministry over to him It had grown and she had grown older still. And so it was that he wound up with his ministry where I had found out that he was the man who was dead for eight days and was brought back to life.

He also told me about how he got his house. The Lord had told me to go looking for a house, but he didn't have much money. Never-the-less he did what the Lord told him, and so he found himself driving around with a real estate agent looking at houses one day. They were all too expensive for him. Still the real estate agent convince him to put in a bid on one. So he told the agent which one he like best and also how much he could spend, when was not even close, but a bid was placed. And sure enough that extremely low bid was accepted. God had fulfilled the promised for a ministry and a house. There was just one to go. And so it was that I heard the full testimony, and I went about placing the order for the Christian karaoke music. Yet there was just a bit more to the story, which I need to tell.

The music came in, but the man did not. When I checked at the church I found out the man died just a day or so later. I feel pretty certain that I was the last person to get his testimony. And so it was that as the bride of Christ that man got his marriage, and there are people like me who can still tell of his testimony and how God worked in his life.

 

[amadeus]

The man continued giving me the full story of how God had brought him back to life, and with promises that God was fulfilling.

He was a warehouse worker at a food distribution warehouse, when the Lord had asked me to help out with the small food distribution ministry at the church. An elderly lady had been running it and she could use some help. Then he had the idea of asking his employer if they might have some donations for the ministry. They told him that they could give him some donations, and they provided him with a huge amount. So he asked the lady where it should go and he was told to just bring it by her house. He tried to explain that is was a lot, but she insisted to just bring in by her house. He had to get a lot of people with vans to take the food there, and he explained out her house was stuffed with food to give away. And that really got him involved with that ministry

A while late, I think he said a year or two, the older lady turn the whole ministry over to him It had grown and she had grown older still. And so it was that he wound up with his ministry where I had found out that he was the man who was dead for eight days and was brought back to life.

He also told me about how he got his house. The Lord had told me to go looking for a house, but he didn't have much money. Never-the-less he did what the Lord told him, and so he found himself driving around with a real estate agent looking at houses one day. They were all too expensive for him. Still the real estate agent convince him to put in a bid on one. So he told the agent which one he like best and also how much he could spend, when was not even close, but a bid was placed. And sure enough that extremely low bid was accepted. God had fulfilled the promised for a ministry and a house. There was just one to go. And so it was that I heard the full testimony, and I went about placing the order for the Christian karaoke music. Yet there was just a bit more to the story, which I need to tell.

The music came in, but the man did not. When I checked at the church I found out the man died just a day or so later. I feel pretty certain that I was the last person to get his testimony. And so it was that as the bride of Christ that man got his marriage, and there are people like me who can still tell of his testimony and how God worked in his life.

Giving God the glory! @Karl Peters Praying for you brother!