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On the Road Again, Autumn 2008 -- 1st Installment
(with John, Boyd & Fred)
by Fred Pruitt
Well, here it is autumn again. We just had our annual reunion at the Buntings in Louisville. And now we're back on the road -- again -- to continue spreading the simple truth that each of us in Christ are not just our human selves alone trying to live up to God's expectations, but that our human selves are really, in this very moment, the expression and manifestation of the Living Christ who has come to live in us by the Holy Spirit, and to be the fullness of Life within the life that we are. So that we may boldly say with Jesus (and only because of Jesus), "When you see me, you see the Father."
We climbed into John's Volkswagen Passat at their home in Louisville on Friday morning and drove to Columbia, Maryland, to Adam Sandbek's house, arriving all in one piece and good spirits by dinner time. Adam is graciously putting us up for the three days we are in this DC/Maryland/Virginia area.
We had an unfortunate setback when we began to unpack the car, when Boyd realized that he had left two of his bags in the pickup truck bed back at John's house in Kentucky. The bags contained all sorts of necessary items, such as clothes, medicine and books, that Boyd needed, but the Lord supplied some substitutes until the goods could be overnighted, and all is well in that regard.
The next day we had a good daytime reunion-visit with an old friend, Julie Johnson, who came from her house in Alexandria, VA. It was a tremendously blessed time as we remembered some old friends and experiences, and also rejoiced in the Lord's Life in the present at the same time.
Last night, (Sat, Oct 4th), we were invited to speak at a Lutheran Church. Bruce Grant, who has been with us on a few occasions the past couple of years, and his wife Gigie, who is a pastor at the church, had arranged a meeting for us and several from the church came. We are still as voices "crying in the wilderness," and our crowds are usually not large, but I was reminded how one of the most important moments in all history was not at a mass meeting of hundreds or thousands, but in a one-on-one meeting between two men one night a couple of thousand years ago, when one man said to another the most important thing a man ever said to another, "Marvel not that I say unto you, you must be born again." That was encouraging to us that numbers have nothing to do with measuring success, but only whether or not we have walked and spoken in the Spirit, and by God's grace we trust that we do.
It was a wonderful meeting with great sharing by all the parties, with an equally tremendous question and answer and sharing session at the end. We recorded the meeting and when we get back we'll get all this trip's recordings to Tony Maden, who will put them up on our audio website, http://podcast.christasus.info/, and they will be available for anyone to listen to or download then. (And there's PLENTY to listen to right now, too!)
Of course the main thing we seek to share and emphasize wherever we go, is the truth of Galatians 2:20, which we express in many different ways and with many different words, but which is very simply the fact that in the cross of Jesus we have died with him, and our "old self," which was a self of sin, was crucified in his death, and that now we live, but in our new life that rises in His resurrection, we rise not just with the old false consciousness or mindset that we are just ourselves functioning alone, trying to do good and avoid evil, but we have arisen in him as a completely new self, so that this new self is no longer itself alone as it once was (or thought itself to be), but is now Christ living in liberty and rest, with our human selves being the outer expression of Him Who is our only inner reality.
We can only share this by the Spirit, and it can only be known as a revelation by the Spirit, and in our meeting last night it was obvious it was the Spirit who was ministering, making lightbulbs come on and exploding light into what was formerly darkness. How incredibly glorious it is every day, wherever darkness seems to be, to say with God, "Let the be light," and Light IS. It IS glory, and it is this unbelieveable yet actual glory we are privileged to walk in and be part of every day.
Tomorrow we leave here and go the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay, to Salisbury, Maryland. If I have internet there and time to do it, I'll send another report of our trip from there.
Keep us all in your prayers and remember us before the Lord as we travel this fall through the northeast, and share this unsearchable gift of oneness with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All of us have learned that this is truly the "pearl of great price," and the field with the hidden treasure in it, for which we have sold all we have to buy. We aren't sorry for a moment we let it all go, because, like Paul, we now realize everything we thought we had and gave up, was nothing but "dung" anyway, and that possessing the true riches (Christ in us our hope of glory), which is truly the inheritance of each of us, is worth more than all the universe itself.
E-Mail Fred at fhpjrrom@gmail.com