Photosynthesis: The Key To Both This Life And The Next!

FMH Children’s Club International
P.O. Box 640109
El Paso, TX 79904
915-751-6789

The following letter-form was brought about as a means of teaching my children the Word of God through the mail. And of course, quite naturally so, that’s the reason I begin these letters with "Dear Children" and end them with "Love Dad". So for the rest of you who participate in these weekly messages, please keep their original intended purpose in mind.

9 September, 2001

Dear Children,

Would you believe it’s been two whole months since I started this sermonet? Well it looks as though the Lord’s finally gonna let me finish-it-on-up. But before we do that, there’s two very important issues we need to put in print... with the first one being the Word from God concerning our last sermonet.

You see the FMHCCI has a small list of folks that get notified by e-mail every time we publish a new sermonet. And it was in our last announcement, concerning the sermonet Ungodly: Andrea Yates And Mike Mason (CEO of Weather-Matic), that the Lord gave me a "bone-jarring" Truth concerning the reason "why I needed to overcome all fear and just publish the sermonet." In fact for those of you who weren’t privy to our e-mail, the following is exactly what Almighty God had me say:

"Well it looks as though the Lord's taken me on another mission into enemy territory. I mean Weather-Matic is one of Toro Irrigation's competitors... but, hey, this one wasn't my idea. In fact it was only yesterday, after I finished-up the message and started thinking fearfully about the potential repercussions of this sermonet, that the Lord gave me Revelation 12:11 as an incentive to publish: ‘And they [souls in Heaven] overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.’ You see what the Scripture is talking about is ‘how to get into Heaven’... which includes trusting in the Blood of Jesus, speaking whatever Word God gives you to speak (this week's sermonet), and doing it without worrying about your life. So do you figure Heaven is reason enough for me to publish?"

So the Lord gave me Revelation 12:11 as a means of helping me understand why I must let other folks read what He had given me to write. Understand? Almighty God tells me what to write and it’s my everlasting salvation that kinda like depends on me doing just that! Father God’s message to me was bone-jarring to say the least... but I did get His point!

OK, so that was the first thing I needed to share with you, and now for the second. Because it was through the following real-life experience with the telephone company that God exposed some more of my unholy flesh that I didn’t even know existed. You see I really and truly figured that most of my ugly sinful flesh had sorta like died off by now. I mean over the last few years I’ve obeyed God the Father to the point of losing my job, my wife (Annie), and my family (see Early Beginnings). I lost my job for speaking God’s Word concerning the corruption within The Toro Company (see The Big Snake Makes A Strike!), and then my wife filed for divorce claiming me to be insane (see Why Me Lord?). So without a doubt, this stuff about obeying God does not come without pain, but then again that’s what "dying to the flesh and becoming more Christ-like" is all about.

But anyway, because of all the suffering I’ve been through for the cause of Christ, I’ve lost quite a few pounds of sinful flesh. In fact I’ve lost a bunch... but I’ve also got a bunch more to lose. And you see this is right about where AT&T comes into the picture. Because it was on the 25th of July that a man by the name of Patricia (native of Guatemala) called and offered me a deal that sounded too good to be true. He said for $7.00 a month I could get AT&T’s 7/7 offer which included long distance service for $.07 a minute and unlimited access to AT&T’s WorldNet Internet.

What a deal! I mean I currently pay a whopping $23.95 a month for unlimited access with AOL (American Online), so just the thought of saving $16.95 on my Internet Service was very appealing to say the least. But just to make sure this deal was everything I believed it to be I asked the young man if this unlimited access to AT&T’s WorldNet Internet was Windows CE compatible. I just wanted to make sure that it would work on my Hewlett Packard Jornada handheld computer too.

Well Patricia not only assured me that it would work with Windows CE but he also guaranteed that I could cancel at anytime, and without any obligation, if I was not happy with the service. So with all that in mind, I told him I’d pray about his offer and give him my answer if he’d call back at 6:00 PM.

Now to make this story as short as possible, the Lord told me to take the deal... and I did... but the reason He told me to take it was not for the reason that I had figured. I was in it to save money and Father God was in it to expose some more of my sinful flesh. Because after two days of loading the software and trying to make it work on my handheld computer I finally figured out the very obvious fact that I had been taken to the cleaners (so to speak) by Ma Bell (AT&T). And what made matters even worse was that once I discovered I had been "took", it took me two whole days to connect-up with an "AT&T real person" who could half-way handle my complaint. And what the nice man told me was that canceling the WorldNet Internet was not a problem but the long distance service was another matter.

Talk about being HOT!!! Well I was! And by the time I got through with that very uncooperative AT&T operator Father God’s purpose with AT&T had been accomplished. I mean without a doubt I knew that I hadn’t reached "sinless perfection" quite yet. And that my friends was right about the time I dropped to my knees asking Father God to forgive me of my sinful flesh.

And seeing how we’re off to a great start on the subject of "sinful flesh", are you ready to uncover some more amazing stuff about the "human body and sin"? Well believe it or not, but in order to properly understand the way the "human body" works we’ve first of all gotta understand the way "plants" work. Because it was right about the time we finished up the sermonet The Water In The Blood! that the Lord directed me to start studying up on photosynthesis... and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing... with the Lord bringing some pretty amazing things to my attention as a result of it. In fact let me give you just one more real good example of what I’m talking about when I say Amazing!

You see the revelation the Lord’s giving me to give to you in this long running series entitled How Do You Want Your Fire... Now Or Later? actually all got started a long time before I even said "yes" to Jesus. I mean what I’m about to tell you goes all the way back to my college days (somewhere around 1974). Now please believe me when I say that I’m not any too proud about what I’m going to reveal, but the Lord wants me to share it with you anyway. Because you see back in those days I was running as fast as I could away from God instead of towards Him. And in my continued rebellion I kinda like lived the life of a "hippie", which even included the use of drugs and alcohol.

However, even though I didn’t want to "submit to" the God of Heaven, He was still able to get me to begin the FMHCCI Ministry, and this sermonet series on the "human body and sin", without me even knowing it. Because you see it was one of those times when I was "flying high", without the aid of the Holy Spirit or an airplane, that I painted a picture in black-light day-glow colors on a blue wool blanket. Do you remember that one Ricky T.? And for those of you who’d like to see this design that I painted, then just take a look at the FMHCCI logo.

So you see it was something like seventeen (17) years from the time that I made that painting, while in such an ungodly condition I might add, that the Lord used it to become the very godly logo for our "All For The Love Of Jesus" ministries. And then it was approximately ten (10) years from that point in time that the Lord revealed to me how the "Sun and Plant" in our logo kinda like all fit into our God-called mission to reveal the details of "the human body and sin". Twenty-seven (27) years went by before I truly understood what God was trying to say through my painting. Amazing?

Now before we go any further with this message let me clarify the fact that my lifestyle in college was not of God, it was a sin, and without the prayers of my godly mother I dare say that I might have lost my life and ended up in Hell. I was dumb and stupid with a capital "I" (Idiot), but through the Mercy and Grace of God Almighty I lived long enough to accept Jesus as both my Lord and Savior. So those are just a few of the very unpleasant facts concerning my sinful life, but now let’s get back to the "rest of the story".

Because you see it was right about the time (1991) that the Lord told me to use the design of my painting for the FMHCCI logo that He also gave me Malachi 4:2 and John 15:5 to go along with it: "But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall." and "I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing."

Now ain’t it neat the way God works? I mean the Good Lord first of all gave me the design, and then He gave me the Scripture that described it’s meaning. However, even though I had God’s True Meaning of our logo it wasn’t until somewhere around October of 2000 that He started giving me an understanding of what this "meaning" really meant. You see it was right about the time that we were uncovering the facts about the human blood in the sermonet The Water In The Blood! that the Lord said it was time to get a better understanding of how photosynthesis works in plants. Because, He went on to say, the mystery of what Jesus did on the Cross will be found through your Spirit-led understanding of photosynthesis.

So where do we start? Well how about a definition? Because you see photosynthesis kinda like "just happens" when a plant takes the "light energy" from the sun and uses it to change carbon dioxide, water, and minerals into another kind of energy called "organic compounds". Photosynthesis is the process that goes on inside a plant in which the sun’s "light energy" is transformed into a "energy food" that can either be used by the plant itself or eaten by animals and humans. Sounds delicious, right? And of course when it comes to this energy packed food processing operation called photosynthesis, all you need in order to make it happen is the sun, air (carbon dioxide), water, soil (minerals), and of course a plant. Got it?

Well now that we’ve got the very basics down pat, what do you say we bog-it-on-down with a few of the hard-core details. And the one very important detail that we need to understand first of all is that every living organism gets their energy from the sun. In other words, without the light of the sun there would be no life on this earth. And what we’re going to uncover very shortly is the little known fact that God also designed the human body with it’s very own "photosynthesis" that takes the Light of the Sun (Jesus) and likewise produces The Energy that gives us Everlasting Life. And of course when it comes to us humans, without the Light of the Sun (Jesus) there is no Everlasting Life in our human bodies!

And how do you like them apples? Well, before we take on this thing about "human photosynthesis" we’ve got to understand "plant photosynthesis" first. So here we go.

In the beginning "...God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day." (Genesis 1:11-13)

Now that’s how this whole thing about photosynthesis all got started. On day number three (3) of God’s Creation He spoke plants into existence... that is after He first spoke light into existence on day one (1), and the air (atmosphere) on day two (2), which was very shortly thereafter followed by the separation of the water and soil at the beginning of day three (3). God spoke everything into existence that’s needed for photosynthesis to occur and then it just all the sudden started happening. It’s called "evolution - God’s way". Because you see when God spoke the plants into existence He made sure they were packed full of this stuff called "chlorophyll" which is really the key to His God-designed "energy food" making operation.

So just how does this chlorophyll work? Well in order to answer that question we need to kinda like shrink it on down into miniature mode. In fact if you can think back to part II of this series, it was in Once Upon A Time, God’s People Were Perfect! that we took a real good look at Adam’s original perfect body, biologically speaking, in miniature! And what we discovered was that from the hairs on his head to the toenails on his feet (and everything in-between), Adam consisted of nothing less than 75,000,000,000 itty bitty little things called cells. He was a bunch of microscopic living organisms (cells) that were all fit together to make one more perfect body. And even though there were over 200 different types of these cells in Adam’s body, they all worked together very nicely to do exactly as God had instructed them to do through His Perfect Design... and not random evolution!

Cells were what Adam was made of, cells are what we’re made of, and likewise cells are what plants are made of! In fact "cells" are about as small as you can go in the miniature and still have everything that takes place in life. I mean "cells" are what you might call the "atoms of the living world". In other words these itty bitty little things not only live and breath, but they also eat and poop, and reproduce and grow just like the big guys. Amazing!

But anyway, when you take it on down to God’s basic design of the cell you’ll find that He made both the "human cell" and the "plant cell" pretty much the same way... that is with the exception of one component called chloroplasts. You see each cell has a whole bunch of smaller compartments inside of it called organelles, and each one of these compartments has it’s very own special job to do in order for the cell to do whatever God has designed it to do. In fact when it comes to the plant cells, the compartments called chloroplast actually take the light from the sun and convert it into "energy food" for the rest of the cells. So it’s the "energy food making process" that takes place inside the chloroplast of the plant cell that’s called photosynthesis.

"And just how does this photosynthesis really work?", you might ask. Well inside these chloroplast compartments there’s some very special stuff called chlorophyll that acts like a sponge when it comes to light. The chlorophyll first "sucks in" the light energy from the sun and then uses it to separate some of the plant’s water (H2O) into it’s two basic components of oxygen (the air we breath in) and hydrogen (a form of it anyway). In other words the first thing that happens during photosynthesis is that the sun’s light energy is used to "zap" the water so that the oxygen (O) can sorta like get "breathed out" by the plant. However, from that point on the process gets a little crazy. Because you see what finally materializes from that little "water zapping episode" is not only some very breathable life-giving oxygen for us humans, but also two chemical compounds that are kinda like "loaded to the max" with energy from the sun. And just in case you’ve got an urge to commit them to memory, the names of these two chemicals are ATP (adenosine triphosphate) and NADPH (nicotine adenine dinucleotide phosphate). Got it?

So are you totally confused yet? Well what we’ve just tried to describe is "photosynthesis part I", or what’s better known as "the light reaction stage" of photosynthesis, in which the sun’s light energy is combined with the water in the plant in order to make air and a form of energy we’ll label as "temporary". And of course even though this new "temporary energy" (ATP and NADPH) originally came from the shine of the sun (sunshine), it doesn’t even remotely look like sunshine at this stage of the game. I mean what started out as "rays of light" has all of the sudden taken on the form of some strange kind of chemical... which will be turned into "energy food" during photosynthesis part II.

Now before we move on into photosynthesis part II, or what’s better known as the "the dark reaction stage" of photosynthesis, would anybody like to guess why part I is labeled "light" and part II "dark"? Well you see part I of this "energy food making operation" is dependent on "light", whereas part II isn’t. In other words in part I it’s the amount of light that gets "sucked in" by the plant that determines how much of this "temporary energy" stuff gets produced. More light means more ATP and NADPH.

So based on that one observation, would you think it safe to assume that the amount of darkness in photosynthesis part II is what determines the final amount of "energy food" that gets produced? Well as logical an assumption as that might be, it just ain’t so! Because you see even though photosynthesis part II can take place in the plant after the sun goes down (without light) it’s the amount of heat that determines how much of this "energy food" gets produced during "the dark reaction". More heat means more "organic compounds" (energy food).

Bueno! Now having said all that, I think it’s about time for another Amazing! Because it’s during "the dark reaction" of photosynthesis part II that the "light energy" from the sun, in the form of "temporary energy" ATP and NADPH, kinda like "zaps" the air "breathed in" by the plant (carbon dioxide) to finally produce the stuff we’ve been forever calling "energy food". So just how do you figure it all works?

Well I’m glad you asked. It would be extremely wasteful on my part if I didn’t at least give you a one paragraph description of what I’ve been "studying on" and "praying about" for the last several months! You just wouldn’t believe the mental anguish I‘ve experienced trying to prepare for the writing of this sermonet. I mean coming to an understanding of this very complicated photosynthesis process, and how it applies to the photosynthesis in the human body, has been tormentingly difficult for a mental midget like me! And now that I’ve finally gotten that off my chest, let’s continue on with the rest of this message.

So where did we leave off? Oh yea, I remember! How do you figure "the dark reaction" makes the "energy food"? Well it all starts-off with the sun’s light energy that’s been stored-up in the ATP and NADPH. Because you see when these two "light energized characters" are taken over into "the dark reaction side" they kinda like "zap" the carbon dioxide (CO2) that’s been "breathed in" by the plant. And of course what happens after that is really and truly Amazing.

I mean the way it all works is that the NADPH brings along the hydrogen (H) from the "light side" (the one that was amazingly divorced from the water’s oxygen (O)) just so the "dark side carbon dioxide" (CO2) can get split-up too. Because it’s right about the time the oxygen (O) from the "dark side carbon dioxide" (CO2) sees the hydrogen (H) from the "light side water" (H2O) that about half of em kinda like leave their carbon (C) partners and lock-up in a "bear hug" to make some more of that H2O (water). So you see the way it all works out in the end is that on a nice warm day, with the right amount of heat that is, one-half of the water that was used-up during the "zapping" operation of "the light reaction" has now been reproduced during "the dark reaction". It’s kinda like one of those magic acts where a full glass of water suddenly disappears and a half a glass reappears.

But anyway, once half of the oxygen (O) from the "dark side carbon dioxide" (CO2) runs-off with the hydrogen (H) from the "light side water" (H2O) and makes more water (H2O), the carbon (C) from the "dark side carbon dioxide" (CO2) is kinda like left there all alone... that is until good old ATP comes on the scene. Because you see what happens next is that the "light energy" brought over by the ATP from the "light reaction side" enables the "dark side carbon" (C) to become very happily married to the hydrogen (H) from the "light side water" (H2O) and the oxygen (O) from the "dark side carbon dioxide" (CO2). And of course the final outcome of this beautiful "dark side" marriage is the "organic compound" of sugar glucose (C6H12O6)... which just so happens to be one of the many types of "energy food".

Wow! I can’t believe we did it... but we did it! And just to make sure we understand it, let’s run through this photosynthesis thing just one more time. Because you see in God’s Perfect Design of life, He made the plants, and only the plants, with the ability to take-in the sun’s light energy, the air’s carbon dioxide, and the earth’s water and minerals, in order to produce the "energy food" that’s not only necessary for the plant’s survival but also for the human’s and animal’s as well.

Now even though "sugar glucose" is the main "energy food" produced by "plant photosynthesis", there’s really quite an assortment of "energy foods" that the plant can make. In fact looking at the plant’s complete "energy food menu", the organic compound "sugar glucose" is actually listed under the category of carbohydrates, which is more or less responsible for providing the cells with "life-giving energy". Then of course you’ve got the proteins that furnish "construction energy" for the cells, and last but not least the lipids that take care of any emergency "reserve energy" that the cells might need.

OK, so now that we’ve got a general understanding of photosynthesis and the "energy food" that it produces, are you ready to take it all back to our little discussion on the "human body and sin" and see how it works inside the human body?

Well that really sounds like a great idea to me! However, seeing how our little "light side/dark side" discussion has tended to overheat some of the gray matter, what do you say we just shut it on down and let things chill? I mean I don’t know about you but my poor old brain can’t afford to risk any more cell damage!

So anyway, until next time, don’t waste any more time getting your life right with the Lord. It’s what’s better known as "making hay while the Sun shines". Heaven is a great place to be... and that’s where we’ll be... if we’ll only Keep on keeping The Faith In Jesus!!!

Love,

Dad (Bruce Hallman)