She is the widow of the late Milton Green. Here is a piece of a very convicting teaching by her. She doesnt call it "Existence and Purpose" but that is the name I found the MP3 labeled on the web.Existence and Purpose by Joyce Green pt. 1Let us pray. Lord Jesus we invite you to speak, because we know You have a word for each one of us. Lord, we so need to hear You today, because there are so many other voices saying so many things. But Yours is an eternal word…a true word. A word that will establish us and cause us to stand, no matter what testings and trials come. So we just wait for You. We welcome You. Thank you Lord Jesus.\tAs I was seeking the Lord about what to share…and I just think it is wonderful that you want to come together and hear the Lord, because that is what all of us need. It is a good thing. There is so much going on now that is so unsettling. We have to be focused on the Lord. As I was seeking the Lord, I think he just wanted us to think about love, because we are thinking about a wedding…and think about what the enemy of love is. The enemy of love is always self…and selfishness. The only way we can ever know how to love is to know Jesus Christ intimately….to receive His love, because any other love that we have to give is usually selfishly directed. Unless it is His love we are giving out, it is not true love. To even try to love some one… without being rooted and grounded in the Lord Jesus Christ…is futility. That is why it seems most everything is falling apart today. So many marriages are falling apart because they cannot stand…some do, but the only way we know how to love is to receive God’s love through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.\tSo I want us to think, just for a few minutes, about this enemy of selfishness. If you are selfish, you will always be self-centered. Everything that happens, you will look at as “how does it effect me?” Self-centered, when you get your feelings hurt. When you get offended, it is because you are self-centered. You see, God’s kind of love that we have to give to others…we are not offended. Great peace have they who love God’s laws and nothing offends them. Psalm 119:165. And those of us who walk with the Lord…that has to be where we live. That has to be our address. The only way you can not be offended is if you let the Lord Jesus Christ heal you.\tYou see, in Matthew 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, as my Father in heaven is perfect. You know, most people think… “that’s not what that means. He knows we cant be perfect. That sounds like sinless perfection. That couldn’t be what Jesus meant.” Most people never just sit before Him and say, “Well, sir, you are the greatest teacher that ever lived. You said that real clearly, Be ye therefore perfect, so what are you saying to us?” When we look at the word “perfect” it means to be complete…to be whole…like a pie with all of its parts. Webster’s says, whole, complete, not participated in by others, as in- this man has complete control of his business. Another meaning of it is “unalloyed”- no mixture. If you mix copper with gold, the value of the gold diminishes. It means “firm, solid, sure.” Undisputed. Holy, devoted and faithful. When Jesus said Be ye therefore perfect, I think that rather than a commandment, it is a promise. He wouldn’t have told us to be perfect…if we couldn’t be. And to be perfect means to be whole.\tNow, I want you to think about the last time you were offended…those of you who know the Lord or those of you who might not know the Lord…think about the last time you got hurt…the last time you took offense. Just think about it. You don’t have to tell anybody. You and the Lord both know about it…just think about it. I will assure you that the reason was, someone touched you in some part of you, where you have not been made whole. Rejection…some one rejected you. You were hurt and you took offense.\tJesus Christ says that we are accepted in Him. Unless you come to the place where all of your identity is who you are in Him, you will go through life being offended…hurt, withdrawing. Just think about it…there are times when rejection and fear of rejection, are the biggest hindrances in any of our relationships. If we are whole…if we let Him make us whole, which is the promise that comes with salvation…if we let Him make us whole, we don’t have to go through life in that yo-yo, that up and down existence….where when we are down, we have no testimony for Jesus, because we are just like the world. It is a shame today, how many Christians, who are having problems with rejection, fear of rejection, lust for approval and all that goes with that…the depression, the hopelessness, the despair…it is appalling how many of them are going to the world for help. They are going to psychologists, even Christian psychologists…I know there are a few who are truly Christians, but you cant use those principles of the world…and get any help from God. Psychologists can tell you why you do certain things. They can define it. But the reason why psychologists have the highest suicide rate of any profession is because they know they don’t have the power to fix it. They can tell you that you did this because of something that happened to you when you were four years old, but they cant help you truly, to stop doing it. The power to truly change only comes through being united in a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ….where He is everything. The only way you will be able to walk as an over comer in this world, is when you cast down all your idols. You know who the main idol has been in my life, most of my life? Me. You know how I know? Because I am the one who gets offended. I am the one who is selfish. I am the one who is self-centered. Every time any of those things happen, then I am pointing at myself. I am the idol in my life. The Gospel that has been preached, for the most part today, is not this Bible…the one that says you have to come to Him with your whole heart, not holding anything back. The reason there is as much deceit in most churches today as there is in the world, is because the real Gospel has not been preached. So that people know they have to come with all their heart….they have to leave all of their idols…they have to let Jesus Christ come into this temple (you), and begin to drive out the idols. When you come to Him that way, then He begins a process of showing us the idols in our life. When He shows us, we either submit to Him and agree with Him and say, “Yes, Sir, that is an idol. Yes, Sir, I do love that idol more than I love You, but I am powerless to change it.” And He says, “I know that. That is why you need Me. I will change it.” Then He changes our heart, so that we love Him more than we love the idol. He begins that process. He goes through every area of our life. That is why it is called a “walk” of salvation…because when we come in the door, which is Jesus, it is just the beginning of this walk. We have to keep walking and we have to let Him change everything in us…that doesn’t look like Him. That is why He said, “in this world you will have tribulations, but don’t fear because I have overcome the world.” Because it is a walk of having testings, trials and tribulations. When we come to Him, we come to Him with all of our heart that we know, but there is so much of our heart that we don’t know. He said our hearts are deceitful and thus, we are wicked and we don’t even know our own hearts. So we come to Him with all of our hearts we know and begin that walk with Him….and He begins to show us the things in our heart…that we really didn’t know that were there. He doesn’t show us these things to bring us despair or discouragement, but He shows us these things and gives us the grace to repent. And when we truly repent, it breaks down that stronghold in our life and we can walk with Him in areas of intimacy we have never known before. He will give us a little period of peace and then He will show us another stronghold. And at any point we can decide, “No, I love that idol more than I love You.” And we are just stopped. In this walk, we are either going on with Him or we are going backwards. There is no place where you stand still. His purpose is that we are being changed from glory to glory. A few minutes ago, I was talking with Teresa about Carla. I said, “How long have you known Carla?” She said about 20 years. Carla is not the same person she was 20 years ago. She’s not the same person she was a year ago, because she is being changed from glory to glory. She left self glory a long time ago and she submitted to being conformed into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not just for Carla or super-saints. It is His plan for every one of us. Jesus Christ is going to return and I don’t think it is going to be long. I am not saying this year, I am not saying two or three years, I am just saying I think it will be soon. He is coming back for His church…a bride without spot, blemish or wrinkle.How many brides have you seen coming through that door, with every eye on them, who were dirty? How many have you seen come through that door who have eyes for anyone, except the bridegroom? You don’t see a bride come through that door of the church with half a dozen lovers hanging on to her, do you? Well, you see it is exactly the same way when we come to the Lord Jesus Christ. He wants us to come as a bride, with eyes only for Him. If our young bride was to say to her fiancé, I am willing to give up all of my lovers when we get married except three…he wouldn’t be very happy, would he? But he would be even more concerned if she said I am willing to give them all up, but one, because he would know you care a great deal about that one. But we are that way about the Lord Jesus Christ…yes, I will come to You, yes, I will serve you, but there are just certain things in my life that I love too much to give up. You know what? He is just so patient with us. He is just so loving and so kind. He pries our little fingers loose from those things we are clinging to…little by little. I didn’t marry until I was 38 and 3 weeks later, my husband had a heart attack. Within about 3 months he was having emergency open heart surgery and they told me he would probably not live through the night. Now, all of those years, I had been a Sunday school teacher, a training union leader, I tithed, I did all of the things you (you are supposed to)do…but you know I never had victory over sin in my life. There was always some besetting sin all those years. So, that night, when the doctors told me my husband was probably going to die before the night was over, I went down to the chapel…and I was going to do what I had done for all of my life. When I would get in a tight spot, I would say, “Oh, God, if you will get me out of this, I will get it together.” And my crisis would pass and I wouldn’t get it together. I am so glad I couldn’t, because I was trying to in my flesh. I wouldn’t have needed a Savior, if I could have got it together myself. But I went down to the chapel, I stepped inside, and for the first time in my life, I knew the fear of God. And the scriptures say it is the fear of God that causes us to depart from evil. I knew the fear of God and I knew that He didn’t make deals. I knew He could do what He wanted to…my husband’s life was in His hands…and He could do exactly what He wanted to with him. I just said, “whether he lives or whether he dies, my life will be different after tonight. And he did live. He went home from the hospital in about 10 days. I went home and I began to get in the Word. I had studied the Word for years, but I had studied it for others…to get a Sunday school lesson. But I went home with a husband who had no hope of living. They sent him home and said he would probably not live six months. And I began to go to the Word, just like a starving person goes to bread. An amazing thing began to happen…the Word began to change me. I didn’t know what was happening… I just knew I fell in love with Jesus…that I loved to talk about Him and that I loved His Word. I thought I was already saved, so I didn’t know what was happening. If you had asked me, I probably would have said that I got filled with the Holy Spirit, because I certainly did. But about the same time my husband came to the Lord…he came just like a starving little child, because his life had been very broken for 43 years…broken by drugs, broken by alcohol…by everything. The reason that had happened to my husband…there was a very very sensitive little boy…and Satan is not all knowing like God, but I want to tell you, he can spot a little boy or a little girl that comes into this world, who is sensitive. And a sensitive heart can hear God…and Satan begins very early to bring pain, to bring perversions, to bring shame, to bring all sorts of things into those lives. That is what he had done with Milt. He had started when he was just a little child. Then a person with such a sensitive heart…that is so full of pain, that they have to find a way to mask the pain…his was with drugs and alcohol. He couldn’t believe that for 43 years, just by stepping into the spiritual realm, he could have so much joy and peace. He was so excited, he wanted everybody to have it. He began to go out and find all the alcoholics and drug addicts and prostitutes and everybody he could…and tell them about Jesus. And if they needed a home, he would bring them home. Our house was always filled with people. He would just drive on the highway to find hitch hikers to pick up to bring home. He lived 15 more years and God used him in an awesome way…simply because he dared to believe that every word of this of this Book is true. He was never hindered by traditions of man. He had never been churched, so when he saw it in the Word, he didn’t have a doctrine telling him that that had passed away. He believed it all was for today. That is the way he lived and that is the way we lived. He lived for 15 years and the Lord took him almost 10 years ago (this is an old tape, at least 10 years old, too). I never really liked the ministry, I never liked the trappings that go with the ministry. I don’t like having to seem to rule over people and I just hated that position. In the ministry, I always tried to sit on the back row. I didn’t want people looking and trying to find the ministers wife…so I just never liked the ministry. I loved people. I used to tell the Lord, “If you will just let me sit at my kitchen table, then I will tell every body there everything that you have taught me, but just please don’t make me do any more than that. I will wash the feet of the saints. I will cook for them and clean for them, but just let me stay home.” Well, after Milt was gone, God began to make me go out…He would make me go out. I would not want to go, but I would go and speak His Word, and I would just be amazed that He was there and that He would help people. I would get so excited and then, I would go back to the house…and think…that’s over…and then He would send me out again. And that is the way it has been these ten years. And I want to tell you, I have walked with God through some really wonderful times and I have walked with Him through many many hard times, but I have seen Him be faithful in every situation of my life. In this walk with Him, which has been since 1973, I have learned that there is only one way that I can live…and that is living in Him….in Him, living and moving and having my being. There is absolutely no other reason to exist…apart from that. He created you and me for one purpose, Revelation 4:11 says He created us for His pleasure. And there is no other reason to live, except to give Him pleasure. And what gives Him pleasure is the same thing, that if you had children, would give you pleasure…obedience, respect, honor. That is what gives God pleasure. He has a plan for everyone of us and that plan is to come to Him…not to religion. Religion and what Jesus has, is totally different. Religion will clean you up on the outside…quit smoking, chewing, dancing…you get cleaned up on the outside with religion, but the problems are still in the heart. But in a relationship with Jesus Christ, the kind that He wants us to have…He begins on the inside…and cleans us up from the inside out…and makes us whole. You see, until God sets us free from those things that bind us, we don’t have a witness, because we are just like the world. So just know, that where ever you are in your walk with Him, He is going to make you perfect….make you whole. Another thing that torments most people much of their life is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of not being loved, fear of not being accepted…fear of everything. What kind of testimony do we have if we live in fear? We don’t have (one), we are just like the world. You see the thing that a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ should give us, is confidence. Confidence that He who began this good work in us, will perfect it.The end.
