I love to express what I feel called to say. Writing helps me to open up my heart and do that. I hope that what I write helps you in some way. I hope it makes you think, encourages you, or inspires you. If it challenges you or if you disagree, I hope you know that I respect your right to have a different point of view.
Words without power Heard for an hour Are like a dry shower Or a plastic flower. Don’t let them devour Your heart-love for Jesus Till you become lukewarm. Instead, let Christ tower And rule inside of you Displaying His power Hour after hour!
Vegetables are grown in rows. Christians are grown in Spirit-led, support group style, circles.
Church is too often like a group of people getting on a cruise ship once a week to sit in straight rows, sing some songs, and to listen to a featured lecture about travel. Then they immediately get off the boat and forget all about what they’ve heard. Stil, they keep coming back week after week to get on the boat and hear another similar sermon before they disembark and go about their merry way again and again.
Spirit-led, heart-to-heart pre-church Christianity, which Jesus called “ekklesia,” floated the boat of the earliest Christ-followers. It supernaturally empowered them to demonstrate Christ’s love and presence far and wide. But drydocked Christianity is shipwrecked.
Jesus said to make disciples. He didn’t say to make people lifelong dependents on a professional pastor.
Does church-going and going and going improve your character and how you live your daily life? Does it empower you to do what the Bible says even to the point of loving your enemies and blessing those who curse you? Or do you leave church behind as you walk out the door? People who don’t love their enemies aren’t following Jesus.
The Church of the High Seas combines a grand Gothic church with a full-sized ocean liner beside the water.
Circumcision of The Heart (The Cure for Christalgia)
Christianity isn’t about events like concerts, conventions, and comfortably crafted church services. It’s about “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Let God the Holy Spirit do open-heart surgery on you and remove anything that is quenching (1 Thessalonians 5:19) His presence and power within you. Then Christ will demonstrate His glory both in and through you like never before. (Colossians 1:27) The Bible calls that “the circumcision of the heart by the Spirit.” (Romans 2:29)
Are you Christalgic? If you have ever drifted away from focusing your daily life on the living Jesus, you may be feeling Christalgic–nostalgic for the conscious awareness of His presence and power in your life. If so, the Holy Spirit is calling you back to Jesus.
Be like the early morning. Daily, allow God the Son to drive any darkness out of your heart and shine brightly within you. (2 Corinthians 4:6) Keep your mind and heart set on Jesus.
The deceitfulness of money and the desire to be wealthy work together as distractions from true prosperity. Fill your life with inner riches. Focus on treasuring and cultivating the wealth of health, an abundance of heart-to-heart community, the beauty of nature, the affluence of peace of mind, and the riches of contentment and joy.
If your pockets are overflowing with money but your heart is bankrupt of gratitude, you are still far away from prosperity. Wanting more and loving less is not success.
Prosperity is so much more than the accumulation of things. It’s the acquisition of a treasure chest of faith, hope, and love. Refuse to allow inner passivity and spiritual inaction to push you off the path that leads to freedom from sadness, discouragement, despair, and depression.
The prosperity that produces pride builds a divide between people. Material wealth is a tool to be used not an idol to be worshipped. Financial success without character, honesty, and morality is an empty vault.
The pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of economic gain are not the same thing. True happiness isn’t the absence of hard times it’s learning to live with joy in both good times and hard times.
Evaluating yourself by your bank account will produce more stress than feelings of secure success. True prosperity is built on non-financial assets. If you’re not achieving inner peace and lasting joy, you’ve wandered from the path to true prosperity.
True prosperity comes from aligning your heart, your thoughts, and your behaviors with God. The Bible advocates self-focused fault-finding. That’s what true prosperity and repentance are all about. “Have mercy on me.” (Mark 10:47) Self-righteousness, on the other hand, promotes the false prosperity of finding fault in others to justify ourselves.
King David prayed: “Search me, God, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me.” (Psalm 139:23-24) And: “Create in me a pure heart, O God.” (Psalm 51:10) That, not his material wealth, was his true prosperity.
Prosperity
How much stuff Does it take For your soul To prosper? (3 John 1:2) Food and clothes Are enough. Be content. (1 Timothy 6:8) Enjoy Inner peace. (Philippians 4:7)
A man and his dog share a heartfelt message about finding prosperity in companionship.
Your life will work right when you begin to live righteously by consistently discerning and obeying what God has written on your heart. Try it and see. (Romans 2:13-15)
If you don’t keep Your inner eyes Focused on Christ, Religion will Institutionalize And shrink-wrap your faith. Let the living Jesus arise Within you and Personally Direct your life!
Christians and churches need to say and do Spirit-led things that literally demonstrate that Jesus is alive, present, and powerful. It’s not enough to merely make statements that say He’s alive.
When Christians gather To be Spirit-led And built together As Christ’s living stones They experience His purifying And healing presence.
A Christian’s leader should be God the Holy Spirit, not a mere human being. I can’t find the Greek word for leader, “prótostatés” used anywhere in the New Testament to describe leadership in the body of Christ. Instead, the New Testament uses three other words: 1) “episkopos” which means overseer, someone who functions like an official in basketball and oversees a Christian gathering to allow the Holy Spirit to freely speak through the people present; 2) “presbuteros” which means elder, someone who is older and more mature in their relationship with Jesus; and 3) diakonos meaning servant, someone who humbly serves others.
A Christian is called to be a sent one, “apostolos” in Greek. All Christians are supposed to follow and obey Christ, living within them and writing God the Father’s laws on their heart, as they are sent, prompted, and led by the Holy Spirit.
A man holds an open Bible in a warmly lit church while reflecting quietly.
How many of those characteristics does your Christianity have? Have you ever seen a list like this in a church bulletin? What would you add to or remove from the list? How would you define the two other types of Christianity (hot and cold) that Jesus mentions in Revelation 3:16?
A steaming mug boldly declares “ANYTHING BUT LUKEWARM!” while surrounded by ice and flames.
Laughter is the human lungs spontaneously expelling rapid bursts of genuine joy in response to the sudden perception of humor. It’s when an aha moment turns into an aha ha ha moment.
Heartfelt laughter is therapeutic. It heals hurts. It connects people heart-to-heart. It transcends language, culture, ethnicity, and race because it is a universal language of the heart.
Humor is the amusing quality of certain words, behaviors, and situations. It causes people to laugh by suddenly surprising them with mismatched ideas, misperceptions, and/or silly situations.
Laughter is a chuckle that erupts into great joy. It can easily spread from person to person. Because it is so enjoyable, people throughout history have sought after “lafter”. Kings would even employ clowns and court jesters to say and “doo” foolish things (like intentionally “mispelling” words) to make them laugh and help relieve their pompous stress.
People still go after laughter. They look for comedians, comedy movies, and funny series to make them laugh. They tell jokes and one-liners as attempts (that frequently flop) to help each other laugh. People often think that having a few drinks will loosen them up and make them a laughter drafter. But laughing isn’t that complicated.
Watch little children when they innocently play. They run and chase one another. They drop like a rock and roll on the ground, laughing all the while. No series. No comedian. They simply spontaneously stream healthy laughter.
Watching children laugh and play can even make adults laugh. Unbuckle your chuckle. Go to a preschool playground and watch for a while. Even better, begin to allow yourself to experience laughter hereafter.
I believe God created laughter. Don’t just look to jokes and comedians. Lighten up and let God Himself create and release joy and laughter within and through you. Allow Jesus to make your joy full (John 15:11) of His joyful presence!
Christianity is supposed to be more! I want more. It’s supposed to be joy. I want great joy. It’s supposed to be community. I want community. It’s supposed to be support-group-style mutual encouragement. I want to encourage and be encouraged by brothers and sisters in Christ.
Christianity is supposed to be humble openheartedness that produces so much compassion, tenderness, joy, and love that people recognize and are in awe of the presence of the risen Jesus in one another. From time to time, I’ve seen that, but it is rare. I want to see it more. I long for it. I pray for it. I search for it. I encourage other people to long for it, pray for it, and search for it, and I can’t quit. I can’t be silent.
There is more, so much more, to following Jesus than attending a weekly religious service. Please don’t be comfortable with and settle for less than your heart overflowing with the joy of the Lord and your life full of what you read about in the book of Acts!
If Christ-followers would boycott lukewarm Christianity in churches, in the media, in politics, and wherever it shows up, there would be a lot less of it. “Because you are lukewarm–neither hot nor cold–I am about to spit you out of My mouth.” (Revelation 3:16
When you walk in the Spirit, God, by His kindness, will lead you down the road of repentance. Day by day and step by step, He will show you thoughts and behaviors in your life that you need to turn away from, people you need to apologize to, ways you need to humble yourself, as well as thoughts and behaviors that you need to add to your life.
Repentance is a lifetime activity, not a once-and-done sorry time. You need to continually realign your heart, your mind, and your lifestyle with God’s will. Be careful that you don’t take a step or a few down the road of repentance and then stop walking in the leading of the Spirit. (Romans 8:14)
The way to truly get spiritually ahead in life is to let the living Jesus be the Head of your life and show you the road to repentance. Let Him be your Lord and your God. Don’t focus on a pastor; keep your focus always on the risen Jesus.
Quit trying to understand God and figure life out. Let your inner eyes gaze on “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Obey Him, not your thoughts, feelings, or desires.
Here’s a better question than “Where do you go to church?” “Where do you participate in church by encouraging people, openly sharing what God puts on your heart, and humbling yourself according to Hebrews 10:24-25, 1 Corinthians 14:26, and 2 Chronicles 7:14?”
Pull the pulpit. Circle the chairs and let the redeemed of the Lord encourage one another!
It takes courage to write and post what I sense God is leading me to write. Here’s an example.
Christianity is about following Jesus, not about following a nation. Never worship and serve a country. (Romans 1:25) Always keep Jesus first!
National pride And Christ collide. You must decide Between the two.
If you are a Christian, your national identity and your identity in Christ have nothing to do with each other. One is temporary. The other is eternal. To try to blend them together is totally irrational. It is like confusing a nation’s flag with the infinity of outer space.
There’s nothing great about hate. If you want the nation you live in to be great, be an example of true greatness by forgiving, being kind to, and loving your enemies.
Make America a Bully Again isn’t a good idea. Let’s be kind to one another and respect the freedom of speech.
You can look at problems. You can look to religious leaders. You can look to political leaders. As for me, I’m keeping my inner eyes on the living, resurrected Jesus Christ. My faith, hope, and trust are in Him!
An American flag floats above Earth against a breathtaking field of stars.
I do faith completely differently than how I was raised. Here’s why:
Faith is beyond belief. It is daily dependence and reliance on Christ living in you. (Colossians 1:27) It is being led, guided, and directed by His Spirit moment-by-moment. (Romans 8:14) “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1)
Faith is a gift from God. (Acts 3:16) Each person has been given a measure of faith (Romans 12:3) but faith without works is dead. (James 2:17)
Have you received the faith God has given you? Are you allowing it to capture you and work in and through your life? Or is your faith dead and without works?
Spiritual passivity quenches God’s Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19) It is a sign of dead faith. “Wake up sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” (Ephesians 5:14)
Unfortunately, routine religion is mostly passive. Step out in faith. Be led by the Spirit and go beyond church as usual.
Jesus never said, “Church attendance is the way.” He never said, “Tithing is the way,” or “Sermon-hearing is the way,” or “A well-trained worship team is the way.” Jesus said: “I am the Way!” Listen to, follow, and obey the living Jesus.
Programmed Christianity follows religious authorities and their nicely packaged programs. Spirit-led Christianity follows, obeys, and is directly led by the living Jesus.
The purpose of a church that wants to obey the Bible isn’t to gather a crowd to passively hear a religious talk. It’s to train and empower people to encourage one another (Hebrews 10:24-25) and to deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow and obey the risen Jesus. (Luke 9:23)
When one-man systematic sermons replaced Spirit-led mutual encouragement (Hebrews 10:24-25) Christianity lost much of its power. All the sermons preached around the world every Sunday seem to have very little impact on how Christians live their daily life. But letting Christ live in and direct you makes a drastic difference in how you live.
* Without faith it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews 11:6) * Without love you are nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3) * Without patience, kindness, and humility you don’t have love. (1 Corinthians 13:4) * Without God’s discernment you’ll be deceived. (1 John 4:1) * Without laying down your pride and embracing humility you won’t receive God’s grace. (James 4:6) * Without holiness no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14) * Without being born again you can’t see the kingdom of God. (John 3:5) * Without the Word (Jesus Christ) nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:3) * Without forgiving others you won’t be forgiven. (Matthew 6:12) * You are without excuse. (Romans 1:20) * Without Christ you can do nothing. (John 15:15) * Without being led by the Spirit you won’t be a child of God. (Romans 8:14) * Without Christ in you, you won’t have the hope of God’s glory. (Colossians 1:27) * Without loving Jesus more than anyone or anything else you can’t be His disciple. (Luke 14:26-27) * Without discipleship you’ll be lukewarm. (Revelation 3:15:16) * Without the fruit of the Spirit you won’t have the character of Christ. (Galatians 5:22-23) * Without being open to receive the gifts of the Spirit you’ll miss out on the power of God. (1 Corinthians 12:1-11) * Without being poor in spirit, you won’t experience the kingdom (inner government) of God. (Matthew 5:3) * Without mourning you won’t be comforted. (Matthew 5:4) * Without meekness you won’t fulfill God’s plans for you on earth. (Matthew 5:5) * Without hungering and thirsting for righteousness you won’t be spiritually filled. (Matthew 5:6) * Without having mercy for others you won’t experience God’s mercy. (Matthew 5:7) * Without letting God purify your heart, you won’t be able to experience His reality. (Matthew 5:8) * Without being a peacemaker, you won’t be recognized as a child of God. (Matthew 5:9) * Without being persecuted you won’t know how to fully rely on the kingdom (inner government) of God. (Matthew 5:10) * Without denying yourself, taking up your cross daily, and following and obeying the risen Jesus, you won’t be a disciple of Christ. (Luke 9:23)
* Pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17) * Faith without works is dead. (James 2:17)
Free Gas for Your Think Tank -- Short Reflections, Lasting Encouragement 