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.
Sometimes people assume that words spoken about one person also apply to them. That assumption can quickly lead to false presumption. For example, it makes me feel out of place to assume that the words “with Him I am well pleased” that that God the Father spoke over Jesus should be spoken over all Christians including me.
I sometimes disappoint God the Father. Sometimes I ignore His inner voice and choose to do my will instead of His. Sometimes I’m unloving or rude to people. Sometimes I’m like the priest and the Levite in the Good Samaritan parable and I rush by and intentionally overlook someone in need. Sometimes I let my pride entangle me in self-focus. There’s no way that God is pleased with me when I am ignoring His will.
The words that I need are the words of this ancient prayer. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me a sinner.” My “place” is at the foot of the Cross humbly receiving God’s unmerited mercy.
Being led by God’s Spirit is as basic as the ABCs. No computer is needed. Just do what you do, say what you say, and think what you think in obedience to God’s Spirit.
A) Align yourself with the inner actions of God’s Spirit.
B) Build your life on the blessings of God’s Spirit.
C) Comply with the callings of God’s Spirit.
D) Dare to obey the drawings of God’s Spirit.
E) Enjoy the encouragements of God’s Spirit.
F) Flow with Spirit-given feelings.
G) Go with the gushings of God’s Spirit.
H) Hold tightly to the hopes of God’s Spirit.
I) Identify with the inclinations of God’s Spirit.
J) Jingle with the joys of God’s Spirit.
K) Keep in step with the Spirit.
L) Listen to the leadings of God’s Spirit.
M) Meditate on the mentionings of God’s Spirit.
N) Notice the nudgings of God’s Spirit.
O) Obey the orders of God’s Spirit.
P) Pay attention to the promptings of God’s Spirit.
Q) Quickly follow the quickenings of God’s Spirit.
R) Rely on the reasonings of God’s Spirit.
S) Sensitize yourself to the signals of God’s Spirit.
T) Trust in the timings of God’s Spirit.
U) Unite with the urgings of God’s Spirit.
V) Validate the verifications of God’s Spirit.
W) Walk according to the words of God’s Spirit.
X) ‘Xpose yourself to the X-rays of God’s Spirit.
Y) Yield to the yearnings of God’s Spirit.
Z) Zero in on the zeal of God’s Spirit.
To follow Jesus you need to be aware of His presence. The ABC’s of the Holy Spirit will make you very much aware of Him. It will also help if you begin to daily read the Bible like a love letter instead of like a textbook.
Christianity without radical discipleship misses the point. Ordinary Christians need to be trained, empowered, and released to continually follow the risen Jesus by listening to and obeying the Holy Spirit. See Romans 8:14.
There is a skill that I’ve been trying to learn for most of my life. It is the skill of quickly admitting when I am wrong, making amends where possible, and humbly changing my thoughts and behaviors to align with what is right.
The most underdeveloped skill among human beings it the skill of listening to and obeying our conscience. The best way to develop that skill is to train yourself to continually open your heart and be led by God’s Spirit.
As I lay sleeping, I suddenly woke up With this call to repentance Forming in my mind.
When your choices Knock you down Choose to back up And to get back up. Don’t just lay around And wallow in sin Until you drown With your heart Not right with God. Turn around, Step up, And stand firmly With Christ On solid ground At the Cross.
Turn down The temptation To not step up To God’s plate, The Cross of Christ.
Your heart will be bright When the risen Jesus Is your sky light.
If Christ is in you, be an outlet. Let His glory freely flow to others. It’s not too late to wake up!
After I encountered the risen Jesus and surrendered my heart to Him, my life was being continually transformed by His presence within me. I was devouring the Bible daily and it was feeding my soul and changing me from within.
About a year after my initial surrender to Jesus someone shared some Scriptures about “the baptism in the Holy Spirit” from the book of Acts in the Jesus town hall meeting that I was a regular part of. They invited anyone who wanted to receive this experience to come to a guy’s house trailer. I was hungry for more of Jesus (and what they shared was biblical) so I went.
Several people gathered around me, laid their hands on me, and started to pray for me to receive the Holy Spirit. They told me to raise my hands and to repeat, “Thank You, Jesus,” over and over. Then they began to pray in tongues.
After a few minutes there was an incredible release from deep within me and words that I didn’t know began to rush out of my mouth. I was overcome with an awe and an acute awareness of the living Jesus that has stayed with me ever since then. Whenever I feel that awareness start to wane, I pray in tongues and I’m suddenly back in that supernatural state.
Last night I was awakened with this original poem forming within me. It’s called: “How Hope and Awe Arise.”
As I walk along The ancient road That follows A mighty river Covered with God’s glory cloud, My fog clears And I behold A radiant light Rising high. It’s streaming rays Flood my heart With awe and hope.
Every step I take in obedience to and reliance on the risen Jesus increases my confidence level in Him! Subjectivity seldom matches reality. Objectivity does. What Jesus says and does in me makes me marvel at His amazing objectivity. Frequently gathering to be Spirit-led enables Christians to be immersed in the culture, language, and objectivity of God’s kingdom.
Let the wall Around your heart Begin to fall. It’s way too tall. Then you’ll be Able to hear God’s call.
Casually socializing, just hanging out with people, lacks the power of openly connecting heart-to-heart. Cultivate purity in your heart so you can plant and harvest seeds of hope in yourself and others.
Christ’s ekklesia begins to function when His followers open their heart to Him and to one another. Let’s gather to encounter, rely on, and actively obey the living Jesus, not to be an audience. Let the living Jesus take active control of the mike, the pulpit, the podium, the program, the platform, and you’ll be amazed by what he does in and thru ordinary people!
Church needs to be more than a sermon dispenser. How about opening the mike for people to testify as prompted by God’s Spirit?
Why don’t Christians have more confidence in Jesus? Perhaps it’s because we have conformed to the world instead of to the culture of the kingdom of God.
Conformation To a culture Of corruption Leads to consternation And self-condemnation.
As long as I can remember I’ve had the belief that God knows everything about me — everything I do, everything I think, feel, and desire, and everything I say. Because of that belief I realized that if God already knows everything about me there’s no reason to for me to hide things from anybody else.
That led me to radical openness and self-depreciating honesty. When I’m interacting with people, I tell all and almost never try to hide anything. As a small child I world go to my parents and tell them how I had disobeyed them. (God knew so why shouldn’t they?) My wife says she has never worried about me cheating on her because she knows that I would immediately come and tell her.
I don’t like to carry guilt when I’ve done wrong, so I confess it and get it out into the open. That way I don’t have to secretly carry the burden.
By opening my heart with honesty to people I feel a deep connection with them, and they usually offer me kindness and compassion. They often reciprocate and open their heart to me. This makes a deep connection.
I was a counselor/chaplain in a recovery treatment center for 5 1/2 years. Rather than approaching the men with reserved professionalism, I shared with them with openness and honesty about my own struggles with guilt, fear, and worry. Then they opened up to me, confessing and often weeping. It was an amazing thing to see this powerful healing pattern repeated over and over in hundreds of men’s lives.
It doesn’t matter to me whether I get likes on this post or not. Good comments, bad comments, or no comments, God knows my heart, so I am free from other people’s praise or criticism. I only hope that this post has encouraged you. God knows everything about you, even the things you’ve hidden from yourself, and He loves you so much that He longs to lead you to hope, healing, forgiveness, and righteousness. Here’s how He does that: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Why not open your heart to the risen Jesus Christ right now?
No matter what my employment has been, my number one job has been to testify to the presence, power, and reality of the resurrected Jesus Christ. The three main ways I was employed as I pursued that path are:
A lawyer argues his case by trying to persuade people with logic, reason, and sometimes emotion. A witness testifies by telling what he or she has personally seen and heard. Anyone can argue the case for Christ, but someone has to have personal experience with the risen Jesus in order to testify about Him.
Jesus isn’t searching for expert witnesses. He’s calling ordinary people to take His witness stand to everyday life so that they can show and tell what Christ has done in and through their lives. Every Sunday millions of formal presentations about Jesus are given around the world, but very few heart-felt testimonies about how He has saved, healed, and delivered ordinary people are heard. It’s time to: “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,” by training them to share “the word of their testimony.”
It’s good to want the risen Jesus to be allowed to be the literal Head of His people when they gather in His name. Jesus didn’t rise from the dead to be entombed again by religion. Let Him live in and direct you!
Relational Christianity, connecting heart-to-heart with Jesus and with His followers, is powerful! It’s impossible to go God’s way as long as we insist on going our way.
Jesus knocks On your door. Let Him thru All the locks That keep your heart In a box.
Lifeless religion Without Christ’s fire Burning in human hearts Is not God’s desire.
I’ve always been amazed by the culture of the awed — the people who always notice the beauty around them and let it touch their heart. People like that overflow with gratitude and joy. They focus on the delight of being alive and avoid the blight that tries to hide beauty from their sight.
The heritage of the awed transcends all the ethnic, racial, national, and other boundary lines that have been built by human fears and people’s pride. It consists of the grateful and open-hearted ones from every kindred and every tribe on earth.
The culture of the awed is my heritage, not by birth, but by my choice and by consistent effort to keep my focus on life’s loveliness. The more I let my heart marvel in amazement at the wonder all around (and within) me, the more I’m certain of the reality of God and of His love for all people that He demonstrates through Jesus Christ.
The ancient King David, who wrote much of the awe-filled book of Psalms, told God: “You have given me the heritage of those who fear Your name.” The heritage of the awed is offered to all people. However, if we refuse to open our heart and let it be deeply touched, we will miss the wonder of it all. Look around and be awed by God’s beauty today!
Here is a bold and shocking quote from the first Christ-follower to be murdered for His faith, His name is Stephen and he boldly warned people with these words: “You always resist the Holy Spirit!” How can that be? When you resist your conscience as it tries to guide you away from corruption and into the glory of a better life, you’re resisting the Holy Spirit.
To be spiritually well fed Make Christ your living Head. Learn to always be led By Jesus alive from the dead.
We can’t go God’s way as long as we insist on going our way. To live a Christ-led life requires that we continually cultivate the condition of our heart so that the living Jesus Christ can have complete control. That’s the heritage of those who are continually awed by the risen Jesus. Count me in!
A brand is a name that identifies or defines the things that people consume. By that definition “Jesus” is God’s brand. He has my brand loyalty.
Unfortunately, over the centuries, “church” has become known as God’s brand. People consume church like a product. They “shop” for a church. Then they choose one and join its loyalty club. Now there’s nothing wrong with going to church and it does bring people some comfort, but just consuming a church’s programs falls far short of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Jesus wants His followers to receive “living words to pass on to” others. (See Acts 7:38.) To fully experience the Jesus Brand, boldly quote and read Scripture until it comes alive in your heart, fills you with ongoing awareness of the risen Christ, leaves you awestruck, and overflows to everyone you meet.
Flowers are created to open. Human hearts are too. When I see people open their heart to Jesus, to continually staying in His Word, and to one another, it gives me hope. A heart fully surrendered to Jesus is open, tenderhearted, and Spirit-led. It makes a person’s face look like an angel’s.
Do the things that cause you to love Jesus more. Avoid the things that distract you from His presence.
Christ in you isn’t about a fresh start. It’s about a brand-new life! Don’t just accommodate Jesus in your life. Let Him be your life!
It’s not New Testament Christianity to merely involve Jesus in your life. Let surrendering to Him be what your life is all about!
Inner peace doesn’t come from explanations or from answers to your questions about life. It comes from full surrender to the risen Jesus.
My brand is: Jesus first! Jesus 24/7! Jesus now!
You aren’t who you think you are. You’re who God says you are. Dive into the Bible with an open heart and discover how the Jesus Brand defines you.
