Filed under: Bruce's Journal Entry
August 6, 2008 – North Hollywood, CA – Below is an email intercessor email that Bruce sent out recently to those who are committed to praying for Bruce and the work he does through Marchiano Ministries. We received such an overwhelming response to this “newsletter” we thought to share it publicly as part of his journal. Please feel free to email it to whoever you feel may benefit from it. May it be a great blessing – the blessing that is Jesus…
Come to Me… I’m gentle and humble in heart – and you will find rest for your soul…
Jesus spoke those words two thousand years ago – words that, for me, feel like, well, the bottom line of it all – the answer to my every quest and question, the whisper of God for every moment of my life, for every issue, eternal and corporal, every hope and dream, every confusion and mistake… Come to Me, Jesus says. And just keep coming to me no matter what! Glory to the name of Jesus. This email is going to be a bit different. Usually we list pressing items for prayer, as prayer is the bottom line of everything that God has put before us – and put before you through us, as we all stand together to see God’s kingdom advance and the love of Jesus overtake lives upon lives, unto eternal salvation and the hope and healing that flows from it. Glory to Jesus! But today I just feel like encouraging you – talking about Jesus and his all-sufficiently in every one of our all and everything. Yes, there is much going on and much to pray about. And the list is pretty much the same as last week, as we run this that is a marathon together – this marathon that God has called us to run.
We are looking at great funding needs…
*A $15,000 South African Crusade in mid-September
*$500,000 to launch Phase II of the John process
*$7,000 to fund a special women’s event in conjunction with the SA Crusade
We are looking at pivotal events that need the favor of God…
*T-shirt Sunday, August 10. 2008
*The upcoming release of my new book, Jesus, the Man Who Loved Women
*The construction of the new MarchMin website
*The fine-tuning of the John script
*In-house meetings within International Bible Society that will define our strategic relationship together
And just to report… Thanks for your prayers for Melinda – she is in a pattern of “good days and bad days”
The Guitar Hero Fund-Raiser organized by Columbus, GA youth was a great success (Youth groups all over, we need you!)
John Producer Partners are wearing their t-shirts proudly and sending us great testimonies of God opening doors for them to share the John vision
Jesus the Christ (the 90 minute edit of Matthew) Movie Nights are beginning to spring up in cities and towns across America (We will be formally announcing this opportunity in the near future – but if you’d like to organize a movie night at your church email and let us know)
And so we praise Jesus as he paves the way before us, guiding us, opening doors that no one can shut, parting the Red Sea, doing the impossible… We praise Jesus and we keep praying and we keep doing and we keep trusting… him. It is the only way. Glory to the name of Jesus!
But I thought to spend the lion’s share of this email encouraging us all – and pointing us afresh to Jesus. Last week I spoke locally in southern California. It was a church where I have built relationship and I speak there about once a year. Well, the last time I was there my father was in the hospital fighting for his life – and things were getting very intense. In the two weeks or so following that Sunday my father went to Jesus. A victory of eternal life – no doubt about it. And at the same time, the loss of my precious Dad.
I stood in front of the people knowing that most all of them had “been there,” in one way or the other. Loss, sickness, battling troubled children, broken marriages, job struggles, abusive childhoods, all manner of addictions and hardships, mountains of personal mistakes… I spoke about how things were no different two thousand years ago – technology notwithstanding, people then were as people today, struggling to grasp for life’s best in the midst of an obviously broken creation.
I spoke of that day when Jesus said those infamous words… Come to me. Wherever he was at the time, he stood before people who were, well, no different than you and me – searching for answers, wrangling with confusing circumstances, striving toward goals with no evidence of their fulfillment, trying to do their best with the information that they have, looking for God and looking for God… not realizing that he stood right in front of them (and here’s the thing) just as he stands before each of us by his Spirit today.
And as he stands there that long-ago day, Jesus knows all of that and then some. He knows the weariness and burdened-ness. He knows the wrangling to try to make sense of it all and the deep sense of abiding injustice and helplessness in the face of skyrocketing prices and threat from every side and people in positions of power over your life who have no business being there and only look after themselves at the end of the day.
He knows the pressures that flood a father’s and mother’s hearts as they look at their little ones and strive to fulfill their responsibilities of provision and leadership. He knows the loneliness of people who are alone, and the hurt of people rejected, and the oppression that comes with sin and guilt, and the disappointment of life not turning out to be what life was supposed to be… He knows, well, it all.
And so he answers it all with three all-encompassing, all-sufficient; all-most breathtaking, life-completing, rest-providing… words. Come to me.
Are you weary, my child? Burdened? My goodness, the burdens have been so many and so constant you don’t even realize them as burden anymore. Come to me, my precious one. The answer you look for, the heart-quest that keeps you awake at night, the hope in your heart year after year…
There is only to come to me, my precious one. There is only to lay your everything – every burden, every fear, every sense of injustice and not understanding anything… to lay it all at my feet and then you yourself, curl up at my feet.
I Am the answer, my precious one. I Am your resting place, the “green pastures” and “still waters” in which you long to lie and walk beside. I Am the table that is set before you in the midst of your enemies. I Am the place and person of mercy and kindness in the swirl of life’s harshness and taking.
Come to me and just continue to come to me. Therein is your Christian maturity, my child – a maturity that has nothing to do with Scriptural expertise and formulas for righteous and prosperous living. I Am the righteousness and the prosperous living. I Am the perfect love that drives out fear. I Am the one who wipes away every tear and turns your every moment of mourning into laughter and dancing…
And so come to me, my precious one. You will find the rest in your soul that always seems to be so elusive.
In a world that is hard – I Am gentle. In a world that is in your face, I Am humble in my heart. In a world that always seems to take and never seems to work out… I Am your peace that transcends all circumstances, your Sabbath and rock and refuge from every life-storm. I Am the love that you seek – the kindness, the care, the safety, the warmth.
I love you, my precious one, and you have only to come to me. I Am your rest, my precious one. Come to me. Come! Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
And so, more than anything else – more than any pressing prayer needs this ministry may have right now – let us “come to me” – come to Jesus, that is. He alone opens his arms wide no matter what. He alone says, I know all about that deep-inside thing. I know every fear and tear in the night. I know that anger in your heart and that thing that seems to have so much power over you, you just can’t seem to stop it or turn it away… I know, my child – and I love you. Therein is the sum total of my heart and my thoughts toward you, my child. I love you, I love you. Jesus…
Yes, he alone is perfect in that love, perfect in healing and wholeness. He alone can perfectly say… Come to me.
May God bless you! Thank you so much for your prayers. Take some time this week to “be still” and know that he is God. Turn off the cell phone for an hour, leave the IPod at home, turn off the TV, stay home for a change, try to even once walk by the computer without checking your emails… Is it any wonder we can’t hear the voice of God in our lives and starve for his Spirit’s leadership in our situations.
Yes, it’s in the stillness and the quiet that his voice can be heard – his whisper that always says, I love you… This is the way you should go. So take the time and rest. In him – in his company and the warming safety and healing sweetness of his presence, rest, rest, rest. Come to me… and rest. Glory to the name of Jesus!
Bruce M
