LOSING MY RELIGION -

https://mailchi.mp/atkh/october-2019-atkh-update?e=4c78abbd6f

Dear friend of All the Kings Horses Ministry,

The Lord has provided several opportunities for me to preach the gospel since mid-summer. My discipling and counseling ministries are going strong. My new Audio Book (produced by Kevin McCullough) is nearing completion. A Bible Study Guide to compliment my original book is in the planning stages (under the wise guidance of Rachel Rooke – Rooke Clan Communications). We pray many will come to know King Jesus more intimately through these works.

The most important aspect of my “ministry,” remains my exhausting daily care for Bryson, replete with regular visits to the eye surgeon in our ongoing battle to save his eyesight, frequent patching of his wounds from painful accidents due to cerebral palsy, and daily guiding his hurting soul to behold his Savior and grasp his identity in Christ. An important aspect of this guidance is my constant knocking on doors to seek new opportunities to build up his self-esteem. I am grateful to the proprietors of Vinni’s Pizza who have opened their hearts and welcomed Bryson to come in and clean up three hours per week under the watchful eye of one of our helpers. He continues to volunteer at the Rbari Animal Refuge in Oakland, and will soon begin helping the Nyack Basketball program once again.

With all these wonderful ministry opportunities ongoing, I must reveal something you may find surprising, if not disturbing. I have come to a point in life at which I am losing my religion. Yes, I have been losing my religion for some time now, and shockingly, I strongly recommend to every reader of this newsletter that you lose your religion too!

At a recent speaking engagement to a multi-faith audience of business professionals, I revealed the arduous, infuriatingly difficult, often demoralizing, failure-ridden story of raising a brain-injured son for the past three decades. I spoke of holding a shaken family with three hurting children together two decades ago after suffering an unwanted divorce that made me want to die. I spoke of amassing riches as a commercial real estate executive in Manhattan from which I could have retired in my 40’s. I spoke of losing that fortune along with my family home, ultimately needing to battle insolvency and near bankruptcy. I told of the liver disease and three collapses that nearly ended my life. As the Grateful Dead lamented, what a long, strange trip it’s been.

After revealing all I’ve been through to the ladies and gentlemen of that mesmerized audience, I told them I had come to the conclusion that I couldn’t carry my son on my back, with his long list of “impossibilities,” and carry the impossibility of religion on my back too. Something had to give … something had to go … religion had to go! Life was just too freaking hard for religion. I had come to agree with the popular R.E.M. song. Indeed, that was me in the corner, losing my religion … and it was a good thing!

Broken, hurting people are drawn to All the King’s Horses Ministry because of my personal story of brokenness. Every one of us is broken in our own way, and those with shattered dreams sense that I understand their long term pain. Oh, but how wonderful it was to then tell this audience about a Savior who came to relieve our burdens. Instead of pointing them to “religion.” I pointed them to a King who came to take away the burden of our sin AND the burden of religion from our weary shoulders.

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, 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.” Matthew 11:28-30

Barry Speaking at the Park Avenue Club to Business Leaders

Because Jesus Christ is the Pearl of great price, I will continue to lay aside all empty promises of gain that this temporary world offers, as well as the far more insidious path of religion. With Paul, I am determined to consider it all to be rubbish, as compared to the surpassing value of knowing and walking with Christ.

“But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ” Philippians 3:7-9

Every human being on this planet was created by Jesus Christ, and for Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:16). We all need to know that while life is too hard for religion, we will find fulfillment and life eternal in Christ alone. Thank you for partnering with me and enabling me to offer such a grand relationship with our precious Savior to many who do not know Him in this dark world, including many who are deceived in their thinking that the false ground of religion can be of value to them, either here or in eternity.

Please know that I am grateful for your support to continue this vital work, even as I continue to care for my precious, struggling son.

Donate

Your brother in the battle for Christ,

Barry Milazzo

But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.” Acts 20:24

LOSING MY RELIGION

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