Jesus Appeared twice

Would you be free from the burden of sin, There's power in the blood, power in the blood. Would your evil effect over you win, There's wonderful power in the blood. There is power, power, wonder-working power In the blood of the Lamb. Would you be free from the burden of sin, There's power in the blood, power in the blood. Would you be free from the burden of sin, There's wonderful power in the blood. There is power, power, wonder-working power In the blood of the Lamb. There is power, power, wonder-working power In the precious blood of the Lamb. What a great way to start off. Testimonies of the Goodness of God. Thank you for being with us today, friends. We certainly appreciate it. We have a wonderful, wonderful testimony lined up for you today. I'm sure you're going to enjoy it. And first, we would like to tell everyone and let everyone know that's been listening and sharing our podcast that we just appreciate it so much. It's going out. A lot of different people are now requesting it. I still haven't got it in the directories where it's going to be free search or where you can actually subscribe and get notifications. So I'm still going to do it this way, the way I'm doing it right now, until I can figure out the best way for me to get it on the directories and get it more widespread. But from the feedback we're getting, it is going over pretty well. People are enjoying the testimonies. And we look forward to continue to give them to you as long as it helps you and just helps that one soul. I know I say that every week, but that's the truth. And that's all I'm here to do is give you the truth, right? So if you've got any testimony you would like to share with everyone, let us know. You can drop us a line at tgoodnessofgod at gmail.com, tgoodnessofgod at gmail.com. You can also send a message through Facebook Messenger from our Facebook page, Testimony of the Goodness of God. And we will get right back with you and set up a time to go over your testimony and share it with everyone. Today's testimony, friends, comes from Jonathan Baldwin. I got this from his YouTube channel, Jonathan and Jillian. He is a man of the Lord. He's got several really good videos, a lot of wonderful messages that he sends out that he ministers to a lot of people with. And I just thought today's testimony was wonderful. And I was looking for a salvation testimony. That's what I normally look for. And this video just really stuck out. What happened is he had a dream. It was from the Lord. He believed it to be, and I believe it to be also, or otherwise I wouldn't be sharing it with you. And you can tell the conviction in his heart and hear in his voice. And it goes right along with the scriptures he quotes. And it's just a wonderful testimony of what we all need to understand what God wants from us. He wants our praise and glory, but he wants our love. And he wants us to know that he loves us. And he wants us to love others as he loves us and as we love him. It's not too much more complicated than that. Oh, there's a lot of scripture, there's a lot of words, but if you've read the Bible, which I have, and if you're studying the Bible, which I currently do, and read it daily, it's pretty clear that being tenderhearted, having great love for another, and the fact that God's commandments tell us to love thy God almighty with all thy heart and all thy strength and all thy might, and love one another the same way. Now, obviously I was paraphrasing. I wasn't using the actual scripture. He's going to do that. And what I hope this does is touches someone. It's very inspiring if you need to rededicate your life. It's very inspiring if you're lost. If you're lost and you don't know Jesus Christ, and you've come upon my podcast, or you know me, and out of friendship you decided to listen to one, I'm glad it was this one because if you're lost, I think this will get you headed down that path to salvation. I don't think it, I know it. I feel it in my heart. I prayed about it. And I think this will really help a lot of folks today. And there's really not a whole lot to set up other than just listen to his testimony. It's just wonderful. And share it. Share it with someone you love. Share it with someone that you don't believe knows Jesus Christ and his saving grace. Share it with someone that you believe is lost, one of the lost sheep. And obviously we can't make them listen to it. But I believe if we have the opportunity and we pray for the opportunity to share the gospel, this is one way to do it. And I pray every day for that opportunity to witness to someone, to share with someone the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, and the salvation and the promises made to us, covenant made with us through Jesus Christ our Savior. And this will help you immensely, I promise. Enjoy today's testimony. The Lord visited me through a dream, and I saw Jesus twice in one night. And when I saw him the second time, all I could do was fall on my knees and cry. What the Lord was saying to me when I had this dream could literally change how you live the rest of your life. And it's important how you live the rest of your life. It's not complicated, but it is important. Pray with me for one moment before I share this testimony. Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, and your will be done. Right now, Lord Jesus, please help us to silence every voice that wants to distract. God, let your angels come into the room, wherever every person that's watching this is sitting or standing or doing whatever right now, and remove the darkness, remove the webs and the lies and the voices of deceit that want to hinder the word of God from bearing all the good fruit that you've sent it to bear. Your word will not return to you void. God, I pray for the ones that don't know you yet, that are hearing about you through this video for maybe the first time. God, for those who are weary and heavy laden and burdened, that your spirit would come upon them right now to give them rest. I pray for those that do believe in you already, who are weary and burdened, that you would give them rest. And God, that the revelation of the message would penetrate so deeply into their hearts and even my own heart and mind again. And I pray that you would anoint every word that's being spoken with your spirit and your life and your life, that you would evict the darkness from people's minds and let them see the light of life, the Lord Jesus Christ, the resurrection and the life right now, that this message would go forth with power, because the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost. So I pray for the lost outside of your home and the lost inside of the house of God, that your resurrection life would move on this testimony to bring them closer to your heart and into your firm embrace, that they would find rest for their souls and peace that surpasses understanding and in the age to come, everlasting life in the name of Jesus. There's three scriptures that we need before I deliver this testimony, and it's essential that you hear these scriptures, because the Word of God is the thing that will set you free. And anytime a person gives a dream or a vision or talks about an encounter with the Lord, we all know this scripture, that the devil can appear as an angel of light. I want you to have these three witnesses in scripture so that you can know for certain what I'm sharing with you is from the Word of God, by the Spirit of God, from the heart of the Father for you. These three scriptures are precisely what the Holy Spirit was breathing on in this visitation, in this dream, where I saw Jesus twice. The first is Matthew 11, 28. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. You'll see, by the time I get to the end of this testimony, that this is the core message of the heart of the Lord. He is trying to undo heavy burdens. He wants to give you rest with Him, yoked up with Jesus, for the rest of our time here on the earth. The second scripture is Matthew 7, 21-23. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. How could it be that we could go on prophesying, casting out demons and doing wonders in the name of Jesus, and yet not have known Him? As I share this testimony about seeing Jesus twice in this dream, there's a huge revelation from the heart of God about this. And the beginning of it is this, you who practice lawlessness. And what is lawlessness to the Lord? Lovelessness. Lovelessness is lawlessness. All the Pharisees who had so much religious zeal, and outwardly were so pious towards God, Jesus said to them, I know you, and I know that the love of God is not in your heart. The perfect law of God is summed up in this, love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus Christ sets us free from the endless complexities and expectations of an impossible law, and brings us into the law of liberty, the law of His Spirit, the law of love. And the last scripture is the proof of that exact point, Matthew 25, 34-45. Jesus is talking about when He separates the sheep and the goats, when He separates the righteous and the unrighteous, in the last day, at the resurrection of the dead, when we all stand before Jesus, Jesus says, Or when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you? Human beings made in the image of God were never intended for that place. You were never meant to be absent from the presence of God. You were never meant to spend all this time striving and struggling to find your purpose. You were never meant to thirst with unquenchable thirst, and hunger with insatiable hunger, for things that you can never fully lay hold of. You were meant to be in the image of God, but you were never intended for that place. Things that you can never fully lay hold of. You were meant to hunger and thirst for righteousness, because Jesus stands already right at the door for you, to feed you with bread from heaven. Every false idol will be cast into the fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. And those who are worshippers of those idols will go and be with them where they are. That was not God's design for any human being. He's made a way back through Jesus Christ. Jesus is the door. Why will these people go with the devil and his angels into fire? Jesus says, For I was hungry, and you gave me no food. I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger, and you didn't take me in. I was naked, and you didn't clothe me. Sick and in prison, and you didn't visit me. Then they will answer and say, Lord, when did we see you and not do these things for you? And the Lord will answer back to them, Inasmuch as you did not do it for the least of these my brethren, you did not do it to me. These three scriptures are the three witnesses that I need for you to know as I share this testimony so that you can rest assured this word is coming from God. At the start of the dream, I was running a race. It was a triathlon. I was so worked up, and I was so determined to win this race because I had friends that needed their hospital bills paid. And the prize for winning this triathlon was like a $5,000 prize. Maybe not a huge, huge amount, but enough to help. So I determined in myself that I had to do everything I could to win this race. There was running, swimming, and cycling. And as we got started, I quickly began to get discouraged because there were people that were just so much faster than me. And I thought to myself, if I could just get a piece of the pie, it would be enough. As I was running the first leg of the race, there was a homeless man that approached me. He was an older man with a trench coat and a lot of shag, and he came up to the trail and was trying to get me to stop. Everything in me wanted to ignore him and run on with the people running this race. I knew if I hesitated, I would only fall even further behind. But my conscience got the better of me, so I stopped and I talked with this homeless man. I hardly even remember a word that was exchanged between us, except that at the end, I explained to him, Sir, I'm so sorry, but I need to try to finish this race because I'm trying to win some money so I can help my friends pay their medical bill. He gestured that he understood, and off I went. I got to the swimming portion, and I was so discouraged because it seemed like I couldn't even see any of the other competitors anymore. I was so far behind, and I was so tired. I just couldn't go any faster than I was going. When I finally finished the last leg of the race, I was basically in complete despair. I got to the finish line, and there was a woman there who was collecting the numbers off the bottom of our tags, the registration numbers that we had to have for the race. We were supposed to detach the bottom portion and hand it in, and that's how they were keeping track of who got what place. I was all by myself with this woman at this point, and even though I knew I was wearing my emotions on my face, her countenance was very bright and happy. I reached down to remove my registration number, and it wasn't there. I had somehow lost it. I was already discouraged, but now I was utterly overwhelmed. I had just poured myself out with every fiber of my being trying to win this race. Not only was I coming in what seemed to be complete dead last, but I didn't even have my own registration number anymore. It was like I hadn't even run the race at all. The woman at the finish line watched me, scrambling as I felt all over my body, trying to find, hoping maybe it was still on me somewhere, and she stopped me. She said, don't worry. Your number has already been turned in, and you won. I thought for a moment, how could this possibly be? And in some unexplainable way, I suddenly knew that the homeless man that I'd stopped to talk to had removed my number when I wasn't paying attention, and that he'd gone ahead of me, and he'd won my race for me. I don't know how to explain it, but I knew that the man was Jesus in disguise. I was utterly exhausted. A sense of shock overcame me. I was just struck silent as I thought about how all this could have taken place without me even really knowing it. I knew that I had to go find the man and thank him. So I left the course, and I went into this really commonplace neighborhood. I continued on, and I approached this very unassuming townhouse. I walked up the stairs, I knocked on the door, and a very pleasant person opened the door for me. Inside, there was a group of people having what looked like some kind of Bible study, or like a young adults group. There was a big bowl of Doritos on the island in the kitchen, and different kinds of pop laid out in two-liter bottles and red Solo cups. Everything looked so normal. But as I walked into the kitchen dining room area, I saw one man who was wearing a red sweater that looked like it was from Walmart, and plain khaki pants. And he didn't look any different from anybody else you'd ever run into on the street. And somehow, I knew that it was him. I knew that it was Jesus. Everybody in the room fell completely silent. It was like they knew what was about to happen as they watched me. I was filthy. I was still covered in dirt from the race. I could see the exhaustion and the shock that was on my face. And they all made space as I took very slow steps towards this person leaning against the island who I knew was Jesus. It was like they all had been through what I was about to go through before, and there was a silent reverence that fell on the entire crowd. I looked at him in the face, and I had no words to say, as it dawned on me that all of my striving was meaningless. And yet, all of the vanity and the bitterness of all that vanity was washed completely away by the fact that he'd gone ahead of me and finished the race and won the prize, and all of those needs would be met. I was so, so tired and so full of awe. I couldn't get my mouth to say anything. I just fell at his feet. And I grabbed his feet as the tears fell down my face, and this groan came out of me. This deep, deep groan. And when I woke up, I was still groaning and crying. The Lord says, Come to me, you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. All of my striving, all of my stress, all of the running and competing meant nothing. But if I had not listened to my conscience and stopped for that one humble, homeless man, I would have missed Jesus. He would not have had the opportunity to take my registration number away from me and win the race on my behalf. The whole of the rest of my running meant nothing. That one moment meant everything. The Lord's not calling you to do a dance and sing a song, and have this ministry, and have that job, and do all these things. Whatever work He's given you to do in this life, wonderful. What you do, do it with your whole heart unto the Lord, and you'll be blessed. But that's not the purpose of your life. The purpose of your life is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Whether in the name of spirituality or religion, or in the name of success and becoming a success in the world. If you speak in the tongues of men and angels and have not love, you are a clanging cymbal. If you have all knowledge and wisdom and are full of revelation and faith that can move mountains, but have not love, it profits you nothing. If you give all of your money to the poor and give your body to be burned, but you have not love, it's all nothing. The opposite of that is also true. If you know, and have seen, and believe that God loved you so much that He sent His only begotten Son into the world, that whosoever would believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. If you know that God loves you, and you love Him back, and love your neighbor with the love that He's freely given you, you've won. He's won for you. And He's able to present you before Himself in the last day at the resurrection of the dead, spotless and righteous and without blame, to stand face to face with God in His glory, in His light, forever and ever. A final scriptural witness is in John. 1 John 3, 18-23 My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And by this we know we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before Him. For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our hearts and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask, we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as He gave us commandment. Jesus says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. Anyone who opens to Me, I will come in and suffer with them. He and the Father and the Holy Spirit want to take up residence with you and in you. Are you ready to take His yoke upon you? His yoke is easy and His burden is light. And He will finish what He started in you. Oh friends, wasn't that a great testimony? A wonderful message, a wonderful dream. I would love to have a dream like that. That is so inspiring to me. To tell me and to tell us how our travel through this life, our journey through our life. There's going to be so many times when we're running that race. We're trying to get that first place prize. We're trying to be the best that we can be. We're trying to climb that corporate ladder. We're trying to be there for our children. We're trying to be there for our friends. And of course the flesh comes in and envelops us inside ourself. And we just start thinking of ourself, ourself. Until we try to achieve something and ultimately fail. Or some people, they do gain that prize. They do climb that mountain and grab that prize. But either way, they've got a heavy yoke about them without prize. And with prize, that race will be a little easier. That climb on that mountain will definitely be helped along by prize. And when our race is finished, who doesn't want to hear those words? Welcome, good and faithful servant. Who doesn't want to hear those words? I know that's what I long for. I know that's what I long for. To spend eternity with Christ by serving him here in this lifetime. Friends, I hope that helped you today. I hope you share it with as many as you can. Put it on your Facebook. Put it on your social media. Text it to someone. Just put your finger on it, hold it down, and it should give you an option to copy it from your phone or your tablet. Of course, if you're on a computer, you can use your mouse button to hold it down. This message has touched me, obviously, and I hope it does you as well. Share it and remember it. And if you get down and you feel that yoke around your neck is heavy or you think that you're so heavy burdened that you can't go on and listen to this podcast again, save it, tuck it away, and listen to it. That's what Christ is here for, to love us, to teach us how to love, and to give us a guideline through his will and his scriptures of how to be the best that we can be in Christ and share it with one another and love one another and be there for one another. We hope you enjoyed it today, and as always, stay blessed.