[Steel]

And now, having some background... Let's get to the specific answer to this question I was asked...

"What has made you choose the LSM affiliated Church in Austin, rather than another local church in Austin?"

While staying with Kenny (the driver of the white pickup who had called and invited me to a bibe study at his apartment) we often had deep fellowship about the things scripture revealed.

We also had a few more bible studies with the other person who had been with us on that first night.

It was after one of the studies, this time at a Starbucks, that Kenny said something to me about knowing that God had a very special mountain bike for him in the house that had been prepared for him in heaven.

Both Kenny and I ride mountain bikes (Kenny is a master mountain biker, I'm just okay at it) so we had been speaking about mountain bikes before and I guess this is how it came up.

Well, when I heard him say this I immediately felt the leading to speak with him about what scripture tells us regarding the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, and God abiding with man in the New Jerusalem.

Now Kenny is a born again believer who had been saved in his early teens. His stepfather is a pastor of a small home church, and Kenny knows scripture.

But he had never paid any attention to this particular scripture verse...

Revelation 21:10... "And he carried me away in spirit onto a great and high mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,..."

And then I brought up...

Revelation 21:2... "And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."

After this Kenny wanted to know more, and so I kept speaking to him about it but he would say that my speaking was just too long and complicated.

So one day I said before the Lord that I would try to write something on it for him... Something simple and concise.

Fifteen pages of writing later I knew I was not doing what he was asking for.

On the one hand I was thoroughly enjoying my own study on the matter, but on the other hand it was not going to help Kenny.

So here I was again, back in Barnes and Noble, utilizing their free internet connection, when suddenly there was a small voice in me that said, "Go to the meeting."

Just like that... Simple and direct... "Go to the meeting."

And the thing is, I instantly knew what "...meeting..." I was to go to.

Now keep in mind this was just a few weeks after myself and my wife had separated, so I was still all about leaving Austin and finding a job somewhere else. I was not happy about the circumstances of my life, and still living in a small apartment living room. Every morning I had to deflate the mattress I was sleeping on and pack my stuff away into a small 3' x 3' floor space that had been clear for me to do just that with.

And yet here I was having who I firmly believed was the Lord, telling me to go to a meeting of a group of believers I had not met with in eight years, and had no intention of meeting with.

I simply said, "No."

And that was that.

Until I found myself on Saturday in Barnes and Noble doing the same thing and the same voice spoke to me again.

This time I felt convicted that I had said "No" the day before... So I said "Yes, okay, I'll go."

The next morning I got up to get ready to go to the 10am meeting of the local church here in Austin, but Kenny had already gotten up and was taking a shower and getting ready for his stepfather's home meeting. So I had to wait.

By the time I got out of the apartment and was headed to the meeting I knew I was going to be late. But I just went anyway.

So I got to the meeting hall around 10:30am. No one was around and I simply push the door open to enter the room the meeting was taking place in.

Now read carefully to what I am going to say...

There is a senior brother named Armando here in Austin who was giving the introduction to the Morning Revival that was being used at that time.

The subject of the Morning Revival book was Genesis.

And as I pushed the door open and walked in... This is what came out of brother Armando's mouth...

"Joseph is a type of Christ."

Nobody in the meeting knew who I was... So nobody knew my name was Joseph.

In fact... Get this... I never used the name Joseph as my name before coming to Austin. I had always gone by the name Craig, which is my middle name, and had only come to be called Joseph, which is actually my first name, because of what is written on my Residency Card (formerly Green Card, which requires what is written on your birth certificate) and which is the name everyone greeted my by on my first day at my first job here in Austin.

From birth my parents, although giving me the first name Joseph because my sister who was born a year before me was named Mary (who knows why parents do things), they preferred my second name, Craig, and had always called me Craig.

I have only ever used the name Joseph since coming to live in Austin, and not because I chose to, but because of what happened when I got my first job here (long stroy).

And yet... Here I was... Coming into a meeting that I had only decided to come to a day before, and one that I really had no interest in being at... Hearing a person say as I opened the door... "Joseph is a type of Christ."

I sat quietly in a chair and tears started running down my face.

Lord Jesus... How I love You.

And how I know You love me.

Near the end of the prophesying meeting I stood up and spoke, telling those there who I was.

After the meeting, a few came to speak with me, but no one invited me to have lunch with them. So for whatever reason I went to the bookroom and bought a Morning Revival for myself... And while driving back to Kenny's apartment I asked the Lord what was different between this meeting I had just participated in and the meeting back in Miami that I had withdrawn from...

His answer was simple and yet utterly profound...

The Lord spoke into my heart... "Before, you only saw people, but today, you only saw Me."

The tears started again.

And saints... That surely would have been more than enough...

But the Lord had more...

When I got back to the apartment and started looking at the Morning Revival what do you think I found in the front of the book?

"Jacob's dream was a dream of God's goal.
the dream of Bethel,
the dream of the house of God,
which is the church today and
which will consumate in the New Jerusalem
as the eternal dwelling place of God
and His redeemed elect."

It was one of the banners for the summer training Crystallization Study of Genesis.

And was about as concise a definition of the New Jerusalem that you can get.