A DISCIPLE AND JESUS CHRIST

5 October 2024

"A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher." (Luke 6:40, ESV)

In 1982, several months after my 30th birthday, my mother called one October evening as I sat in my living room in Dallas, TX. I loved this city; its big-ness, its busy-ness, the TV show “Dallas,” and the Dallas Cowboys. I had just been laid off from my job as an asst. restaurant manager. I do not know how mom heard that I had been terminated, but she heard about it, probably from my sister Brenda, who I talked to frequently. The conversation went like this:

“Son, I heard that you lost your job. You know you can always come home. I’ve been praying for you, and I am done chasing you all over the country, so I went to see the pastor at our church. We just got together and prayed for you, and he directed that they pray what the text said. So, son, we have turned your life over to God for the destruction of your flesh. You are living outside of the will of God, so we prayed that He (GOD) will deliver you and change your life.”

She then quoted a very revelatory text to me that I had never heard at that time, because literally I had not read, or was familiar with the Biblical text. Being raised in the Presbyterian Church, we didn’t do a lot of reading of the biblical text, discuss deliverance, or the Holy Spirit.

“…you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”(1Cor. 5:5).

My mother’s words never stopped haunting me. At the time I was drinking heavily, snorted cocaine quite frequently, and I smoked pot religiously.

180 Degree Sunday, Oct. 17, 1982.

I really liked my new friend Miriam, who was one of the restaurant hostesses who worked with me in the restaurant from which I was terminated. We became close contacts and talked regularly. She was a Spirit filled Christian and was going through a divorce at the time, which ostracized her from her Pentecostal faith. She was very knowledgeable concerning scripture and kept insisting that I really needed a Spirit filled relation with Jesus to understand the biblical text and to understand what my mother was talking about.

I agreed to attend church with Miriam on Sunday, Oct. 17, 1982. On that Sunday the minister, of a well-known charismatic church in Dallas was sharing from the biblical scripture out of the Gospel of Mathew that Sunday. His text read;

“Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” Mat. 18:19,20.

The Words from that text prompted a response in my thinking, and I thought that I could ask God if Miriam would agree to be with me, putting it mildly, that we could cohabitate and eventually be married. I had been divorced like her from my twin son’s Tiki & Ronde’s mother since 1977. Suddenly, in my right ear, I heard a voice internal but very audible.

“James, you need to agree with me”.

The words were very penetrating. I had never heard what I knew immediately to be the voice of the Father God. The voice literally penetrated my soul. The minister said as if he were looking directly at me,

“If you hear God speaking to you right now, you need to come forward!” 

I had heard ministers say that before, but now I had heard an audible, internal voice from God. I responded to the altar call in what I can only describe as one of many 180-degree tipping points in my life.

For the first time I walked to the front of the church and gave my life to Jesus that day. I came home, and I began to read my Bible, and I began to listen to Christian Radio and watch Christian television. It was a continuation of the morning service and more results of my mother’s prayer when another well-known TV minister gave a prophetic message that made me stop and listen.

“You are a businessman under conviction; because you need more than salvation, you need the baptism of the Holy Spirit, If that is you, I am now asking you to invite the Holy Spirit Baptism into my life with the evidence of “Speaking In Tongues.” 

At his invitation, I got on my knees and confessed to the Lord as my Savior that I needed the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He then asked, after we had prayed not to speak anymore in English but to utter the first words that would come out of my mouth, but to me it sounded like baby talk, but he encouraged everyone listening to keep going, which I did. At that moment, I heard Satan say, “That is not of God!” The minister resounded as if he heard the devil. “Don’t you listen to the Devil tell you, ‘That this is not of God!’” I knew instantly that this was the Spirit speaking, and I began to speak more fluently, knowing inside I was baptized in the Spirit and began to practice and look for a church and for more of this teaching in the Word of God and to study more about the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The Fire in Rockwall

I had found a job as a waiter and manager in training at another restaurant when I met my dear friend Linda Miller. Linda was an older waitress at this restaurant and encouraged me, “You’ve got to come to CHURCH ON THE ROCK!” She said it in all caps, too. This, too, was a divine encounter and was about to be another 180-degree tipping points turn in my life.

Church On The Rock (COTR) in Rockwall Texas, led by Dr. Larry Lea became that place where my spirit filled education began. I had seen the signs on the highway: “FAMILY! CHURCH ON THE ROCK. On the day that I decided to visit, Dr. David Shibley, who would later become an important disciple-mentor to me, was sharing about becoming part of the family. I decided this was where I wanted to go to church.

I had been at Church on the Rock (COTR) for about a year when Pastor Larry shared on a Wednesday night service that we were no longer going to have the traditional Wednesday night service as we traditionally knew it. He instructed everyone to find a place, stand, kneel, sit; however, you choose to pray, and he instructed everyone to begin to pray in the spirit for one minute if you can. I did not realize how difficult a task this would be when, after about 10 or 15 seconds, there was a sudden lull in the church. Dr. Lea continued to encourage us to keep going. After one minute, he stopped us and said,

He introduced what I call the three mantras of prayer, “Desire, Discipline, and Delight.” This 3-word mantra began a series of teachings on the Lord’s Prayer. I still use this method for praying the Lord’s Prayer outline. I have known many people since that time who still use this method and model for praying and hearing from God.

In Luke 11:1,2, Jesus’ disciples asked Him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.” Jesus then teaches them to pray, which we refer to as the Lord’s Prayer; “When you pray. . .” and we know the rest. When I was in seminary, Dr. Brad Young, a professor that I still highly respect and a colleague who I attend church with today, calls it The Disciples Prayer.

In his book “Could You Not Tarry One Hour,” Dr. Lea describes a conversation that he had with Dr. Paul Yongi Cho and Dr. W. A. Criswell of First Baptist in Dallas, Texas as they were discussing what their prayer lives were like. That night at supper Criswell jokingly confided,

"Cho; When I pray 15 minutes, I feel as if I’ve worn God out and worn myself out, too. “How can you pray as you pray? How do you do it? How do you pray?” Dr. Lea said, “I’m so glad Cho did not give Dr. Criswell a traditional Pentecostal answer such as, I speak in tongues, and you don’t.” Instead, Cho smiled graciously and said, “Every morning, I get on a ‘running track’ in the Spirit, and I circle that track. I know that when I’m one-fifth of the way through, two-fifths, four-fifths, and then, finally, I know when I’m done. Then, if I have time, I run it again and again, just as a runner would circle a track”[1].

The fire that started in Rockwall is still burning in me and I still run that track. It is where and how I learned a lot of minstry. I learned how to pray like Jesus taught his disciples I learned how to be a pastor and a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Questions for Reflection

1. Desire, Discipline, and Delight are the three avenues to prayer mentioned by Dr. Lea. Where would you say you are on the scale of 1-3 for your prayer time? (1) Desire, 15 minutes. (2) Discipline, 30 minutes. (3) Delight, 60 minutes.

2. Do you have a daily, or periodic format for your prayer life? If periodic how many times a week do you pray?

3. Discuss your prayer-time, i.e., How many minutes do you average when you pray. Do you include scripture, devotionals, or an outline like the Lord's prayer?

4. Consider praying based on the amount of track time you have. 5 minutes each day will bring you a Miracle time with God. 15 minutes will fulfill a Desire to spend time with God. 30 minutes will be a time of Discipline spent with God. Then 60 minutes for the Delight to have devoted your time to spend with God.

[1] . Lea, Larry. Could You Not Tarry: Learning the Joy of Prayer. (Altamonte Springs, FL Creation House, 1987), p. 180.