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He Actually Called Me His Friend
The Encounters Turn Into An Intimate
Relationship Beyond Ecstasy

    Another way this friendship was made known to me was at a time after I was commanded by the Lord to leave my father and mothers house and to give up my career of being a chef along with everything else to follow Him wherever He sent me.  The Lord had instructed me to walk by faith without anything not even money and to go a city on nothing.  My parents didn’t understand at this time but this was the price that the Lord told me I had to pay at the age of 19 to follow His destiny for my life.   This wonderful pastor that I didn’t know initially was supernaturally spoken to by the Lord to receive me into his home.  This pastor was a kind man but he really didn’t know me.  He was from the Caribbean Islands and at that time I was young and immature in ministry about cultural ethnicity.  I remember him getting offended because I laid down in the bed with my shoes on, this was disrespectful to him.  It was other things like this that I didn’t know that offended him. As a result, he didn’t know me, he began spreading evil things against me because he didn’t understand some of my mannerisms. (I admit to this day that I did act quite strange but God has taught me balance.)
Well, as he kept speaking these evil things, a little time passed by when one night Jesus came to him in a dream, while sleeping, and said to him, “David is my friend and I have sent him here.  Now, you will be dumb and unable to talk for speaking against him until you repent.”  This pastor woke up out of the dream dumb.  He could not talk physically for a number of days.  He came to me broken when he made up his mind to repent to me and his mouth was loosed.  That’s when he told me all that I’ve just told you.  I had wondered what was wrong with him when he was walking around the house for days without speaking to me.  I thought that maybe he was fasting or maybe offended by something.  When he told me this I then understood.  He started having a different mindset toward me from that day forward.  The scripture records that the Lord rebuked kings for Abraham’s sake.  It also shares how God rebuked in dreams those who mistreated them even in Jacob’s case with his father in-law Laban.

 


“And God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream by night, and said unto him, Take heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad”
“It is in the power of my hand to do you hurt: but the God of your father spake unto me yesternight, saying, Take thou heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad.”

“Except the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely thou hadst sent me away now empty. God hath seen mine affliction and the labour of my hands, and rebuked thee yesternight.”
(Gen 31:24, 29,42) 


    When these things began to happen again I knew that the Lord and I had something special even though I didn’t understand how.  This shocked me because I didn’t know we were that close until Jesus spoke of it and allowed this mighty demonstration to take place by the witness of another man’s testimony.  Jesus called me His friend at this time in 1992 when I was only 19 years old.  Again, I did not understand this.  I had only been saved for two and a half years.  According to my religious mindset this established friendship between us happened so quickly according to my standards, but I knew the Lord could not lie.  I thought, “Is this all I have to do?”  These manifestations started taking place from these sovereign acts of the Lord without my control or knowledge and He allowed me to see it through these face to face experiences to me and to this pastor who started to be against me.  Every one of you reading this can also have the same face to face experience, that I’ve just shared with you, and friendship with Jesus plus much more!

He’ll Be A Friend To You
Face To Face Friendship With Jesus
 

How To Become A Personal Face To Face Friend With Jesus


[view:slideshow_inpage_test3=block]    To pick up from the last visitation appearance in chapter one, I really didn’t know how I had become the Lord’s friend so quickly.  I thought, “How had I become His friend?”  You see I never presumed that I was a personal friend of Jesus like I’ve heard so many Christians loosely quote when they say, “I am a friend of God.”  In this chapter, I would like to show you how I became a personal, face to face, friend with Jesus and how it was actually attained.  This relationship is not limited to a select few.  You can be the Lord’s friend in this way, one in which can be manifested evidently to yourself and before others openly.  I would also like to show you how this relationship was established between Him and I in such a short time so you can be well on your way to experience Him like this also.
Some of these visitations or appearances that I have had from the Lord are not all written in the original order the way that they happened by each year.  The purpose for this is to bring a clear understanding to you of how all this began.  So because of this you will not read every appearance in its sequential order.  Instead I’m writing from an eighteen to twenty year perspective with understanding according to scripture, unlike I had when I was a teenager or in my early to late twenties.  I was young and didn’t totally understand what was happening to me.
The Lord himself rebuked men on my behalf.  These rebukes to men on my behalf from the Lord (by Him appearing to them and telling them He was my friend. and that I was His friend), didn’t stop with the appearance in 1992 with the pastor from the Caribbean Islands.  This friendship also began to be validated throughout my walk with the Lord in ministry during my early and late twenties.  Before we move on, here are two more brief experiences of the Lord validating this friendship that happened to me in similar manners like that of what I told you at the end of chapter one.

APPEARANCES THAT VALIDATED FRIENDSHIP
He’ll Be A Real Friend To You
Jesus Took Up For Me And Protected Me From Those Who Mistreated Me


“He suffered no man to do them wrong: yea, he reproved kings for their sakes”      (Ps 105:14-15)


Have you ever met a real friend or found someone who was a true and loyal to you!  That’s what true friendship is about – being loyal and faithful to the one you’re in friendship and covenant with.  Today in our society and culture there is such a lack of ethics on true friendship.  I learned during my personal experience from walking with Jesus that He is a true friend.  One other experience where I’ve seen this happen on a first hand basis, was in 1997 at a certain church in St. Louis, MO.  There was a pastor who started out being my friend for a while until the opportunity for money presented itself.  Basically, he turned on me and started accusing me of many things to his Board secretly.  When the Lord allowed me to find out initially I couldn’t believe he had said such things.  I then confronted him on these things.  Instead of responding wrong which was the easiest thing to do in the flesh I meditated on the words of Christ where He tells us to do good to those who do evil to us.  So I purposely gave this pastor a set of my most expensive furniture, to be a blessing to him.
I treated him with kindness although he tried his best to hurt and assassinate my character.  Before these types of judgments and vindication from the Lord had begun in my life.  I had learned and was obedient to Jesus’ teaching about loving our enemies.  I practiced doing good to them who were evil to me.  I had learned to suffer while being done wrong without threatening others, by my prophetic gift or authority that they would be judged by God.  I even remember a time in college when one of my roommates hit me in my jaw.  Boy that really hurt!  But instead of responding in anger or the flesh, as was my former street ways would’ve led me when I was in the world, I turned my other cheek to him as the Lord said for us to do in His word.  You see, I had meditated on Matthew chapters 5,6 and 7 about the beatitudes and the way Jesus tells us to live with one another.  I was obedient to this.  So before these judgments started happening I was just operating normally as Jesus taught us to respond like I had always done when I was first saved.  In the beginning, Jesus didn’t never come and take up for me.  But when he started supernaturally taking up for me, later I learned that I was in the trial stage.  He wanted to see if I would obey His word and when I did He started suffering and judging men on my behalf.  It was totally unexpected on my part!  No man was to do me wrong without consequences.
A lot of Christians are vengeful and want the Lord to vindicate them like this but they have not passed the test of walking in genuine love toward their brothers, sisters or enemies when they are done wrong by them.  They want God to judge other people that have wronged them or caused them pain in some way out of a spirit of anger, bitterness and resentment of what that person may have done to them.  This is not Christ’s way, nature or character.  After I passed those tests, He then promoted me to start walking in this realm of authority with Him as a friend.

Jesus Appears To Me As The
“HEAD OF THE CHURCH”

The Chief Shepherd Appeared 


“And when the chief Shepherd shall appear”  (1 Pet 5:4)


[view:slideshow_inpage_test3=block]    One night, during the same season, I was asleep, when suddenly without warning I was whisked at a moment by tremendous speed and appeared immediately with Jesus standing in mid-air over the roof of this pastor’s church.  Jesus had on the most beautiful white robe with the most firm look on His face but without anger.  He looked at me with great tenderness and held out His hand, extending it in front of me.  I stood on the right side of Jesus.  I saw my feet and His feet though they didn’t touch the ground or surface.  He took His hand and fingers and started pointing at the finger on the hand he extended in front of me saying, “You will be able to count the number of people who are left at this church because of what he has done to you and how he has mistreated you.”  I could see very clearly through the roof of the church below us.  Then Jesus said specifically, showing me more plainly, that there would only be two rows of people left at that church.  After this I awoke!  I knew that I had just been with Jesus supernaturally again.  As quickly as He had come, He was gone.  Only for a few minutes He was with me face to face again and then suddenly I was returned back into my body.

The Chief Shepherd Defends Me As A Friend

    The only word I could think of was Amazing!  He did that just for me!  All I could remember were the words He said on my behalf to defend me in this visitation.  This meant so much to me, not because Jesus was judging someone else (which I hurt for this pastor) but the fact that He did it for my sake.  In this appearance I saw Him act as the Chief Shepherd and Head of the Church, but we stood side by side as friends.  I knew He was my Shepherd too but in this visitation He acted on my behalf as friend.  From this happening again, this validated our friendship He spoke of 5 years earlier in 1992.  I also realized then that there was something really special between the Lord and I.  What I want you to understand is that this pastor’s church was packed with people full and running over.  His ministry was beginning to boom, until after he did this against me.  I told him what Jesus said to me in the dream and he didn’t believe me.  He said, “I don’t receive that” as if to give me the old cliche that the church says today when they don’t want to receive a prophecy that they are against.  But please remember that this wasn’t just a prophecy it was Jesus, face to face, in person, who is, in Bible terms, the Faithful and True Witness of Heaven (Rev 3:14).
It was about three months later when everyone at that church all of a sudden just left.  Someone later told me that the whole church was almost empty.  Without knowing the visitation or what I had told this pastor they said, “There seemed to be only two rows of people left at the church on a Sunday Morning!”  This church stayed this way for at least 2 years.  I felt so sorry for this pastor but he was so stubborn that he wouldn’t even listen to hear about a visitation appearance from the LORD JESUS.

Jesus Is Still The Chief Shepherd And Head Of His Church


“For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body:(Eph 5:23)


 

What most pastors and leaders of many churches fail to remember is that Jesus is still the Head of the Church while they are only under shepherds beneath His authority.  Many pastors feel like they run God’s house because they are the set man over that local work.  They think that they have the last word, even about the church they pastor, but this is not true.  The Bible declares that the Father has given Jesus to be the Head over all things to the Church which is the Body of Christ.


“And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away” (1 Pet 5:4)

“And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all” (Eph 1:22-23)

“And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence” (Col 1:18)


In this visitation Jesus was acting as the Head of the Church and what the Bible titles Hs position in being the Chief Shepherd.  It dawned on me that we were standing above the church which is a position of superiority and preeminence.  The Church is the Father God’s house which Jesus mentions in (Mark 11:17).  The Father has turned over His house into the hands of His Son Jesus in this day and age.  In the Old Testament, the Father administered as being Head over the temple.  This is seen in the Old Testament when He would send a word by the prophets to the pastors who were out of order as under-shepherds.  The way the Father dealt with His Church in the Old Testament I also began to see the same pattern from Jesus in this appearance.  Jesus said, “I do that which I see my Father do” and now I can truly attest that He does by this face to face appearance (John 5:19-21).  You may say how?  In the Old Testament one of the Father’s judgments against the shepherds was that He would scatter and drive the sheep away, causing them to leave the erring shepherd by leading them to another fold or another shepherd.


“And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase”
“And I will set up shepherds over them which shall feed them: and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall they be lacking, saith the LORD” (Jer 23:3-4)


    This is what Jesus was doing in this visitation.  He was showing me how He was going to scatter the sheep because of this pastor’s offense.  In this context the Lord called the sheep, “My flock” which designates personal ownership.  What we, as pastors, must realize is that the sheep are God’s flock not ours.  The people are His and He can turn them where He wants them to go!

A True Friend Will Let No One Speak Against You

    The point I’m trying to make here is how loyal Jesus is to you when entering this face to face friendship covenant with Him.  When He’s your friend, He’s your friend!  He will not let or allow others (even those who claim to be His anointed servants or His children) talk behind your back and harm you, even with words.  He will be loyal to His friendship with you.  This level of relationship with Jesus is available to you and He wants this so desperately with you as well.  Well, what about you!  Are you ready to experience this or something like it?
Again, this experience changed my life and gave me another level of the awareness of how much Jesus loved me by this awesome, but sad, demonstration of His judgment toward this pastor on my behalf!  The Bible records and speaks about the men the Lord was in friendship covenant with and how He judged and rebuked kings or anyone who was mistreating them.  This happened with Abraham concerning King Abimelech (Gen 20:3).  Also with Jacob.  God defended Jacob from Laban by rebuking him in a dream (Gen 31:24).  The Lord also stood up for Moses by rebuking Miriam and Aaron, his own blood sister and brother for their disrespect of him (Num 12:1-8).  This also happened from God the Father and Holy Spirit on behalf of Jesus when dealing with Pilate and his wife.  The Lord warned and rebuked Pilate and his wife through a dream not to have anything to do with crucifying Jesus (Matt 27:19).  The Lord also spoke up for Paul supernaturally to Ananias, who was a Christian disciple that doubted Paul’s character, integrity and conversion (Acts 9:13).  And He will do the same for you!

Jesus Takes Up For Me Again

[view:slideshow_inpage_test3=block]    As my relationship steadily grew with the Lord, He suffered no man in certain situations and circumstances to do wrong by me or to speak evil to me.  When I say He has been a friend to me I can truly say this by the dramatic experiences that I’ve had.  I never asked Him to do this on my behalf.  It just started happening.  Meanwhile before this time I was just focused and caught up in loving Him and obeying His commandments to please Him.  He didn’t do this in every case.  I have had to suffer persecution but Jesus was still faithful.
One more such experience was in 2001 when I was doing a service.  The presence of God was thick and rich during worship when I saw Jesus appear over to the left side of the room just standing there.  He wasn’t walking, He was just standing there.  When I saw Him (even though the people didn’t) I turned fully toward Him to give Him my attention when He starting talking to me.  He said, “Do you see this young man on the front row?”  I replied, “Yes Lord.”  There were a number of people in this service but there was a young man on the front row who had a back brace on that covered his whole entire back down to his hips almost.  This brace was very notable and big.
He had come to get healed.  I didn’t totally know why he was in this state but it looked very serious.  Jesus continued talking to me about this young man saying, “He is in this back brace because I’m judging him for going around to the churches speaking evil of you”.  He said further, “Tell him that if he will repent to Me and you for doing this I will heal him and he will be completely healed in the morning”.  I didn’t even know that this young man had been going around saying evil things about me.  He shared later how he had been out of work for two months because of his back.
So I went up to him and called him out in front before the people and I started telling him everything I had just heard Jesus say to me.  I also had already told the people that Jesus had appeared in this service and was standing on the left side of the room.  I told the young man what the Lord told me about him in front of the people.  The Lord had instructed me to do this openly in front of the people for this man had spoken evil openly to many people.
Before this time I had never openly done anything like this to anyone in service.  I then stopped and asked him, “Is this true.”  He responded, “Yes” in front of the people.  This young man then went on to tell me that he had been going around to people in the different churches in St. Louis speaking evil of me, and putting down the ministry that the Lord had given me, because he didn’t understand some things about my life and ministry.  He then humbled himself and repented openly asking the Lord to forgive him and then also asked if I would forgive him for the things he had said against me.  He also said that there was no way that I could have known what he was doing unless the Lord had revealed it to me.
Then as I prayed for him the pain left his back and the back brace came off that very moment.  He was totally healed!  We still have pictures of this young man and his back brace.  The next morning he went back to work.  He was a log cutter, picking up heavy trees.  You can’t do that type of work with a bad back.  Later he shared how his back became like this and he said, “All of a sudden one day my back just gave out on me without warning or injury and I began to be in excruciating pain.”  He then continued, “I went to the doctor and they could not find anything wrong with me so they sent me home with this back brace.  I have not been able to work since then for 2 months.  The doctors couldn’t do anything for me so they put me in this brace and sent me home.”  He was so happy that he had repented and obeyed God.

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