God Endless Mercies

Do not allow the names and location discourage you from reading this. It might just be a tonic for you.

Hello, I'm Joe Whitchurch. We may have met just recently. Yet it is possible I may not have had time to share with you the most wonderful thing that has EVER happened to me. And it is such a Huge thing, that I've written this little booklet to freely summarize it for you, and to not bore you with the details, should you have already concluded that people with little booklets are, well...'out there'. Smile. That's what I'd think too, unless I heard this information and knew the intentions of the one sharing it with me were not manipulative, or sales oriented. Thanks for taking a minute to read this tiny book with Huge news. First off, this is not about me, though at the risk of sounding like a bit of a primadonna, I will start there. The truth is, I should never have been allowed to attend college. I barely graduated from High School. I was suspended from school a couple times while my father was on the school board. I did not fit in with the jocks, the brains, or the marching band. However I did get in a rock band with guys 3-5 years older than I was, and that probably saved my self esteem in High School. We were offered an opportunity to jam with a local band that would have two members later become a group called Cheap Trick. We never did, because we thought we were 'too cool.' At one rock concert our band, backed up REO Speedwagon. I was a typical pothead and a promoter of a predatory mentality toward the opposite sex, and a promoter of drugs, vandalism, and nihilism. I got to see friends I 'turned on', have their lives go very sour. Some of these never recovered. "Great", you say, "today I met a guy who is kind of a contagious, Loser." Relax. In a recent episode of ER they asked the question, "Do you think a person can really change?" ER seemed to think it possible. Please hang in there with me a bit longer. In the drug scene I was looking for transcendence; something bigger than the all important and overly celebrated, Self. In the rock culture I was looking for competence musically and belonging. In promiscuity I was looking for love. My heroes; Jim Morrison of the Doors, and Jimi Hendrix, seemed to have everything but ended up dead, apparently of their own lifestyle choices. In the peace movement, I was looking for morality and a cause that I could endorse. A life purpose of a sort that wouldn't cost much and would make me look like a decent guy. I gave up on the church I grew up in after a rock band I was in played "GD the Pusher Man" over and over again, to the accolades of the sweet minister who cared more for popularity than for his God's name. All I remember hearing in that church was to 'be good.' And the good, just wasn't in me. The minister did not believe the Bible but sometimes quoted it like any piece of poetry, or saying. He was 'hip' in his day, but sadly, he was also hollow. It was my late in high school and early in my freshman year in college when I really began seriously reflecting on the meaning of my life and some radical information Roy, a neighbor shared with me. Until then, I had felt the church was full of 'yesterday's news', celebrating a dead hero who was somehow 'an example to us all.' I had dead heroes, and from my reading, this hero seemed more like a hippie than the stale church folk. It seemed my parents only attended because that is what the 'good' people do. And I was confused about church as a subculture. Roy shared some startling news with me. He told me that Jesus Christ is going to come back to this earth again! That the world is rightly His! This threatened my, "I'm going to be a famous rock star" fantasy destiny. Frankly, I got high repeatedly in an attempt to cope with what I was reading in the Bible, a book called "World Aflame" by Billy Graham, and "The Late Great Planet Earth" by Hal Lindsay. Later books like "Mere Christianity" by the pipe smoking Clive S. Lewis, and the writings of a bearded American philosopher living in a commune in the Swiss Alps, named Dr. Francis Schaeffer, would challenge my personal nihilism. The good news was that I was indeed correct in my awareness of the hopeless and helpless condition I was in. This condition was well deserved for the chaos we, and all of humanity have consistently chosen. Yet the way-huge news is that the Jesus character who died, actually died to pay the death penalty I deserve for my sin. No kidding! The most significant human in history, died for Joe Whitchurch. And he alone of all historical figures, actually conquered death physically after being dead three days! And He is in fact God, the second person of the Holy Trinity AND He is coming back to earth someday soon. Is that awesome or what!?! Over a time span of three months of active listening to Bible teaching in the Jesus Movement of the early 70s and from several different churches who DID believe the Bible, a light was turned on inside of my very lost head. You see, Jesus said "He who comes to Me, I will never cast out." When I realized He had first loved me, and had been pursuing me, I realized that I could trust Him fully with no need of any backup plan. That was the day I began telling people about Him, and the day He began putting together my heart, and mind into a sane whole. I am far from perfect. But I am not the man I was. If He could and would do that for me, I can hardly imagine what He might do for you. Please give your life completely and unreservedly to His kind purposes. It's about where your First Love is located. For me the paradigm shift was not loving myself and my music first, but God Himself for what He had done for me through Jesus Christ. To know Him one need only Repent (turn from putting 'self 1st' to God 1st), Rely on what Christ alone has done (dying for our sin personally and conquering death physically, which is celebrated at Easter), and Receive Him by asking Him to come into our life and make us new from the inside out. Once you've prayed and done that, Resolving to follow Him as Lord is easier. That's it. Nothing to buy or sell. The best aspect of Life, really turns out to be incredibly free! Thanks for reading this little book. God has done great things for me. I'd love to hear your response.
If you read this online, just hit the back key or arrow to return. If you got here from my web page bio page, you can check out what God has been doing in my life since He rescued me. It has been no small adventure. Joe B.