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.
When Jesus isn’t allowed to have the platform someone else takes control of the meeting. Until Christians begin to let Jesus have the platform and become His daily audience, we’ll stay stuck, passively watching a pastor perform on Sunday. It’s much more important that you know what the living Jesus is saying to you than what a pastor is telling you.
When religion tries to regulate and rule you run to the risen Jesus! The one-man lecture church system stays stuck in the same ole same ole of sit silently and listen and there’s no place for God’s Spirit to take control.
When a church service requires people to be spectators it does them a disservice by training them to be hearers of the word but not doers. Its time for church services to empower and release people to be Spirit-led participants, not passive spectators.I long to see church become a gathering of Spirit-led participants instead of an audience of spectators controlled from the front.
No matter how things look and feel, the risen Jesus is real and reaching out to embrace and carry you. Let Him!
The only cure for your hurting heart is the risen Jesus. If you’re looking anywhere else (even to church), you’re looking in the wrong places.
Meetings in the body of Christ are supposed to be about empowering, releasing, and sending Christians to daily follow God’s Spirit. They should never be about corralling and controlling them. Whether in robe and hat or T-shirt and jeans, there’s no place for heavy-handed church authority.
Human hierarchies can command, coerce, and compel obedience, but they can’t cancel the corruption that is in people’s hearts and replace it with God’s glory. Even the best ecclesiology (church government) can’t lead a church to splendor and set the captives free. Only “Christ in you” can do that.
Jesus calls His disciples to surrender to the kingdom of God and to be transformed by His ongoing inner presence. He wants His followers to be ever led from within by His Spirit, not by the demands and domination of a religious authority structure.
Jesus has been programmed, canned, boxed, and scripted. Perhaps it’s time that we let Him be Lord.It’s easy to preach that Jesus is Lord, and yet not even allow Him to be the hands-on Lord of a church service.Instead of telling people about preachers we like, perhaps it would be better if we told them about Jesus and what He’s actively doing and saying.
When Christianity shifted from being about the presence of Christ to being about sermons and ceremonies about Christ, it lost its power. True Christianity is about making the risen Jesus the focus of each day. It isn’t about trying to get Jesus to show up in power. It’s about getting out of His way so He can.
Have faith in Christ living and working in you. Get out of His way. Trust the Holy Spirit and continually obey His inner promptings.
If sedation
Or even meditation
Hasn't healed
Your heartache,
Fully open your heart
To the risen Jesus
And experience
What He can do.
I woke up this morning with the word “testimony” on my mind. It made me realize how fortunate I was as a new Christian to be surrounded by people who shared their testimonies of how Jesus was working in their lives. Their real-life stories helped me to learn to recognize, hear, and obey the voice of God in my heart and made me hunger for more and more of the Bible. I got out of bed and immediately wrote this testimony about testimonies:
I love to hear salvation testimonies, the living word about the present-day work of the risen Jesus, shared from the heart of people who were born again, healed, and set free by Him! Testimonies overcome the darkness in human hearts by shinning the light on how the risen Jesus is speaking, acting, and working today.
Christians need to gather to hear the living word of heart-felt testimonies, not just one man’s analytical talk about the written word. As a new Christian I was part of a weekly testimony gathering. The first time I went there, I heard people testify about how Jesus saved them. As they spoke Jesus suddenly became real to me and I’ve been passionately in love with Him ever since. Every week I heard open-hearted testimonies that not only told me what Jesus was doing in people’s lives, but also showed me. I could see Jesus in their radiant faces as they told about what Jesus did and was still doing in their lives.
Their living word, life-story testimonials made me so hungry for the written word that I would continually devour the Bible. I still read it every day with an open hungry heart. Although our testimony gatherings had no sermon, my three years there caused me to grow in my relationship with Jesus and in knowledge of the Bible far more than decades years of sermon-hearing ever did. See Revelation 12:11.
When people are being led by the Spirit to show and tell what God has done and is doing in their lives the presence and power of Jesus is demonstrated for all to see. Regularly gather with some Christ-followers and open the meeting for anyone present to testify as they feel prompted by God’s Spirit. The most powerful sermons I’ve ever heard have been sincere, heart-felt testimonies!
There’s no reason why every church service shouldn’t feature at least one salvation testimony from a member. If they run out of members with testimonies, each week they could invite someone from another church to come and testify.
If Jesus has saved you, don’t silently sit on that experience. Tell it far and wide-even in church services! If you are shy about speaking your testimony, write it down. Then post it on social media and/or make copies of it and pass it out to people you see throughout the day.
When Christians meet and testify as they let the risen Christ take full control of His body, amazing things happen! Christian, you have a calling and a ministry. Get busy doing it daily! I don’t think that Jesus calls His followers to assemble together to sit & passively listen to one man’s ministry, but to actively obey the 50+ New Testament “one another” commandments.
The Bible warns us about a false Jesus. Many people and a few denominations that claim to be Christian redefine Jesus. We should always verify testimonies with the Bible and make sure that they are talking about the Jesus who is the Creator of the Universe in human flesh and not a redefined Jesus.
Years after my experiences in the first testimony gatherings I was helping lead a church. Every week we invited a different guest to come on Sunday and give their salvation testimony. We had about 90 different guests come and do that, and it was glorious. Some Mormon missionaries found out about it, and they kept trying to get us to invite them to testify. However, if you examine their beliefs about their Jesus, He isn’t the Creator of the Universe in human flesh, so we politely turned them down.
In 2 Chronicles 7:14 God gives the keys to spiritual awakening, revival, and healing. However, those keys require more than that we quote them or hear sermons about them. They require that we actually do them with an open, humble heart.
If Christians will fully welcome revival and surrender control to the risen Jesus, we will see church transformed into a Spirit-led demonstration of the priesthood of the believer. Then we will see amazing Christian unity that transcends our divisions of doctrine and race!
I was just interviewed by Marcus Bakker about Church and Race on his podcast: Straight Talk No Chaser. Hear it here!
If you’re looking for something or someone to make you happy, you’re actually looking for the One who created you to be happy. Let your pain lead you to continually surrender the control of your life to the risen Jesus. The more I let pain cause me to look for and submit to the presence of Jesus, the happier I am!
Pain often helps propel people into continual supernatural joy with Jesus, so that they don’t feel a need to look for happiness elsewhere.It can cause us to seek to be consistently aware of His presence and obedient to His voice.
To be led by the living Jesus requires faith and action. You have to believe that God is speaking to you and obey what He tells you to do even in your pain. Being led by God’s Spirit is adventurous, exciting, and fulfilling. Try it and see.
Being Spirit-led is normal Christianity. Anything else is sub normal. See Romans 8:14.
It’s important for Christians to resist and be set free from the deception, torment, and influence of demons so that we can freely be led by God’s Spirit. Pain can wake us up to sneaky demons that can influence us without us even being aware of their presence, such as pride, rebellion, and racism.
The feeling of loss can toss down pride and guide us to surrender to the daily work of the Cross in our life when we let pain slowly produce great gain by training us little-by-little to embrace meekness, mercy, brokenness, purity, and hunger for righteousness. Then we begin to taste and see that God is working all things together for our good and we learn to literally rejoice in trials, temptations, persecution, and delay as we wait with Christ “the hope of glory” overflowing our heart with His present reality and power.
When Christians depend On being spoon-fed Religious nuggets To ease their pain, It’s hard to learn To be Spirit-led.
Wake up. To be numb inside is to miss out on Christ’s internal life. Embrace the lifestyle of binge-watching the risen Jesus and internally streaming the author and finisher of the faith.
Quick Christianity served up as a tidy Sunday service and then shelved for a week abandons the power of abiding in the vine and being led by the Spirit. Being led by a pastor or a program is nothing like being led by the Spirit.
Quick Christianity can be completed in only one hour per week. True discipleship is 24/7/365.
You can’t follow Jesus if you won’t let Him lead! To be a Christ-follower is to be daily led by the risen Jesus. Let go and let Jesus lead!
A dead Jesus can’t direct a church service but must depend on someone else to run things. The risen Jesus can. Dare we let Him?
To corral and confine Christianity to programmed church services is to cut it out of daily life. Let’s open the corral and let God’s Spirit run free!
An external church service is a poor substitute for Christ’s internal life. Keep your focus on being led by “Christ in you.” (When you find yourself wanting a church service to end, it reveals that you don’t really want to be there.)
A church service has a timed beginning and ending, but a relationship with Jesus should never stop, not even for a moment.Jesus is present when Christians gather but He is rarely surrendered to as the direct leader of the meeting.
If you know more about the Bible than you’re using in daily life, you don’t need more information. You need more application!
Christians are called
To be daily led
By the Spirit,
Not to just sit
Through a sermon
And simply hear it.Christianity's not a service
That you sit through.
It's "Christ in you,"
Daily directing
What you say and do.
The living Jesus is the great Heart-Changer! We need to train our heart to continually open up to and surrender to Jesus.
I woke up this morning with these thoughts being written on my heart:
An open heart has ears to hear God’s Spirit. A closed heart is stuck in its own opinions. The human heart was created to be loyal to a king. If it closes to King Jesus it will surrender to the reign of deceptive desires. A heart closed to the risen Jesus is griped by pride and deception. “The pride of your heart has deceived you.” –Obadiah 1:3.
The human heart has departed from God and needs to be renewed by opening up to and surrendering to the living Jesus. Jesus said: “Out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” If we will keep our heart continually open to His presence and Lordship, He will expel those things and replace them with His Spirit.
King David cried out to God for a clean heart. Jeremiah prophesied that God would give broken people a new heart. To those who will give the living Jesus unending access to their heart, God delivers on David’s request and Jeremiah’s promise and “Christ in you” turns an evil heart into one being continually filled with God’s glory.
Then Jesus will build His ekklesia (the town hall meeting in ancient Greek cities) on the rock of Divine revelation as He connects people heart-to-heart to His Spirit and to each other. See Matthew 16:18 and Ephesians 2:22.
The human heart was created to be open to God and to other people. If yours isn’t something’s off. Continually open your heart to the Lordship and authority of the risen Jesus. For a heart-opening handbook, search for: The Joy Of Early Christianity book.
When Christ-followers open up to each other so the presence of Jesus can be seen in them, deep supernatural heart-connection instantly occurs.Religious words without heart-connection with Jesus and other Christians have little impact on people’s lives.
Strangers who are both connected heart-to-heart with Jesus quickly discover a heart connection with each other. I’ve frequently experienced that in my life!
To worship is to connect heart-to-heart with God and be awed by His presence. When you learn to “Rejoice in the Lord always,” worship is wherever you are! Christianity isn’t about a weekly spectator event. It’s about ongoing heart-to-heart interaction with the living Jesus.
Make the most of Jesus’ name. Say it, write it, think it, and savor it more than any other name, including your own!
Opening my heart: I believe that God has called me to be a passionate and persistent proclaimer and facilitator of “the priesthood of the believer” instead of one-man control of a church service. Because of that viewpoint I get much criticism and very little praise. In the past week, three different people who I don’t even know have rebuked me for my views that I post in my blog and on social media. That helps me to avoid the trap of my ego.
I have wanted to be famous, but God has protected me from that desire by closing numerous doors that I had worked hard to open. He has also called me to intentionally lay down things that I love to do. For example, I love to preach, but once He called me to copastor a church for 10 years with my wife and not to preach a single sermon. Instead, we had an open mic every Sunday morning.
Humility is hard to learn. I’ve still got so far to go.
Go to Jesus
Wherever you are
And keep your heart
Open to His presence
Because He is
Everywhere.
Jesus is the Bread of Life. He calls us to “taste and see that the Lord is good,” to daily surrender our heart and my mind to His presence, leadership, and Lordship as the living Bread. Here’s how I try to do that:
God’s Spirit gently leads, enlightens, and empowers. The devil tempts, deceives, and enslaves. I notice what is going on in my mind, desires, and emotions and then discern its source. Then I verify my discernment with Scripture and resist the devil while drawing near to and obeying God. I also frequently interact heart-to-heart with numerous other believers who are doing the same thing. I listen to what the Spirit is telling them and when we’re aligned it helps confirm what God is telling me.
I had a picture of a structure similar to the one in the picture below come to my mind and felt like God was showing me what the body of Christ is like when it is being led by the Spirit. It is people connecting heart-to-heart around no one and nothing but the living, invisible Jesus. Later that day I went for a walk on streets I haven’t been before and saw the structure in the picture. Almost every day I experience the supernatural reality that Spirit-led heart-connections actually demonstrate and release the presence and power of the unseen Jesus.
When members of the body of Christ aren’t communicating heart-to-heart with the risen Jesus and with each other they choke their supernatural connection with God’s Spirit. Then they begin to gather around and to rely on human methods and programs instead of on the living Jesus.
When I keep pointing out how much more effective Spirit-led gatherings of the body of Christ are than human programmed and controlled church services, I’m not bitter about church. I’m just excited about how incredibly amazing Spirit-led meetings are.
The more you hunger and thirst for righteousness, the more the inner Comforter can communicate with you and fill you with Christ’s presence. The more you allow yourself to be broken and poor in your own spirit, the more you can hear God’s Spirit and let Him lead you beyond routine religion and into the promised land that He wants you to inherit. If you’ve been given a deep hunger to know Jesus better, don’t let anyone or anything hold you back from personally pursuing Him.
Connect today with the Comforter, Christ living in you, and hear what the Spirit, the Teacher, the Leader, the Head is saying directly to you. One of the ways that the Spirit speaks within us is to remind us of various Bible verses throughout the day. I don’t have one particular life-verse from the Bible but many living verses that take turns burning in my heart and fueling me from within as the Spirit brings them to my remembrance.
The worst memory loss is when we don’t allow the Comforter to bring Scriptures to our remembrance and ignite His fire within us. (If you’ll daily read the Bible with an open heart, you’ll notice that the inner Comforter will personally remind you of Scripture verses during the day.)
Do you want to learn to hear the Comforter more clearly? Gather with at least one other Christian at least once a week to listen to the risen Jesus and be led by His Spirit together.
Church is too often like a bank of lights with all the bulbs unscrewed and wondering why the people around them don’t see. I want to be more effectively plugged into the risen Jesus so I can shine brighter in this dark world. The dominion of desire devastates free will. The dominion of Jesus sets the will free to follow Him.
Roman Emperor Constantine turned Jesus’ ekklesia (town hall meeting) into the religious institution known as church. The Emperor’s new clothes have too often hidden the risen Jesus behind the institutional Jesus and made the inner Comforter difficult to connect with. The truth is that connection with the invisible Comforter is simple–just surrender to His presence.
Free Gas for Your Think Tank -- Short Reflections, Lasting Encouragement 