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.
Jesus is my pilot. I am His passenger. He doesn’t need a co-pilot.
Jesus challenges religious people to open their heart to God and be real. He turns over tables and disrupts traditions. He calls all people to turn away from wrongdoing. He tells the truth that uncovers uncomfortable situations. Unlike the Pharisees in the Bible, religious people today don’t try to crucify Him again. They just strive to avoid His presence and control.
You’re worse than you think you are. “There is none righteous, no not one.” Thank God for His mercy!
Pride empties your grace account. “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
Is your life on empty?
Any life that is empty
Of the awareness
Of the presence
Of the living Jesus
Is missing the reality
Of the security
And the adventure
Of this good news:
“Christ in you,
the hope of glory.”
“Fill my cup, Lord!”
The Holy Spirit is fiery. He came with flames of fire at Pentecost. When not quenched, He burns in human hearts. He disturbs casual, lukewarm Christianity. Thus, He’s not welcome and His leadership isn’t wanted or appreciated in most religious settings. Beyond giving Him a token mention from time to time, He’s mostly ignored in Christian gatherings.
Very rarely is the Holy Spirit ever allowed to take charge and disrupt a meeting like He did on Pentecost Sunday, creating the world-wide movement of Christianity. He’d like to get us moving again like a raging wildfire consuming everything in sight but the cold ashes in our heart resist His sparks and put them out before they can burst into flame. And we’re too often content with that. Casual Christianity is a causality of our apathy — a spiritual tragedy. It’s not the will of God!
To be Spirit-led
You have to get
Beyond your head
And open your heart
So you can start
To be aware
Of God's nudgings
And promptings
Within you.
Humanity Has to Mentally battle For sanity, To inwardly fight To overcome fright And the dark night Of the soul. The risen Jesus Is the light Who can lead us To the delight Of Christsanity.
Welcoming the risen Jesus into the building called your brain and the house called your heart is much more important than visiting a church building.The more I lose my mind and find the mind of Christ, the more His thoughts fill me with the joy that He designed me for.The best, most effective, and most powerful counselor I’ve ever had is the living Jesus. He continually heals and restores me.
Learn to be controlled by Christsanity (the mind of Christ), not by the chaos of human cravings and desires. Christsanity is to not “be conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” It calls out: “March away from madness and into Christ’s gladness!” (Modern Christianity is based on “you-turns” where you turn (or don’t) as you see fit. Early Christianity was based on “U-turns” where you do an about face any time the Lord Jesus commands.)
Christianity without Christsanity is just as confused as secular culture. We need the “mind of Christ.”Christsanity requires ongoing personal connection with the living Jesus, not just hearing religious talks about Him.
Christsanity comes by continually surrendering to the literal Headship of the living Jesus, not by a following religious system. It’s produced by Spirit-led thinking. That’s the best mental health!
A simple hello to God is often the start of a life-long series of Spirit-led steps and supernatural God-sightings.When you feel like you’re losing your mind, look to the risen Jesus and let a daily relationship with Him restore you to sanity.
Christian revival (genuine spiritual awakening) is the spread of Christsanity. Unfortunately, Christianity is often more influenced by secular culture than led by the risen Christ. Christ-followers who don’t fit into religious systems are often rejected by organized Christianity the way the Pharisees rejected Jesus.
Institutional Christianity often gives people a false sense of spiritual security by causing them to believe that their religious affiliation puts them in right standing with God. Christians are supposed to be directed by Christ’s presence within them. The Bible calls that being “led by the Spirit.” See Romans 8:14.
Vanity Drives sanity From humanity. Sanity isn’t offended By truth. Vanity is.
To be sane Let Jesus reign Within you
The unwillingness to hear and follow the voice of your conscience is a form of insanity. To deny the truth is to choose insanity, but we usually prefer to call it lying. Jesus is the truth. If you’re unwilling to tell yourself the truth, you’ll be uncomfortable around Him.
Lookie! Too many Christians are: 1) medicated by religious methods, 2) sedated by sermons, 3) anesthetized by apathy, and 4) inoculated by institutionalism, instead of being contagious with the fire of God. Lookie! I see Jesus right here, right now, saying: “Wake up!”
Photo by Paulo Mu00e1rcio Dos Santos on Pexels.com
You don’t need more explanations and information about Jesus. Simply open your heart wide to His presence this very moment!Jesus is available to you right now. No need to wait for a religious service. Open up to Him now.
Churches have neglected to encourage people to stay ever connected with the risen Jesus. So many Christians treat church services like charging stations that they spiritually limp into them hoping for a substitute for direct, daily interaction with Jesus.
The time to be aware of the presence of Jesus is right now. Experience Jesus now — right where you’re reading this. Now. Hallelujah! Open up to Him this very moment. Thank You, Jesus!
Don’t be fooled! Watching a show or hearing a talk about Jesus is nothing like spending time personally interacting with Him.You don’t have to wait for a special meeting or event to plug your phone into a charger or to plug your life into the presence of Jesus!
Christians should never settle for a second-hand relationship with Jesus that goes thru a sermon or a program!Event or meeting focused Christianity easily overlooks and misses out on the now presence of Jesus before and after the program.
I love to write with a now awareness of Jesus, sensing His presence and transcribing what He puts on my heart.Thank You, Jesus, for being real and available now and offering direct access to Your presence to whoever will receive your offer!
Take the King’s crown in your life off of yourself and keep it ever on the living Jesus Christ.As Christians we don’t need more strength. We need fuller surrender to Christ’s strength.
Any day without glimpses of God’s glory is a boring story. It takes guts to be guided by God’s glory instead of by our own self-focused story.
Continually beholding The glory and magnificence Of the risen Jesus Gives life true significance.
Greater glory Than was on Moses Fills the heart That fully exposes Itself to Jesus.
Look! Jesus is everywhere Not here and there, He’s all the time Not now and then. Let His presence Make every now A holy wow!
All the words in the world Can’t truly explain the Word Who created the world And became flesh To live among us, But hearts That welcome Him To freely live inside Experience a radiant glory That that rises far above All the sermons That have ever tried To describe Him.
Self-glory, The ride Of pride, Will destroy Awareness of God.
Embrace full-time everywhere Christianity, not just part-time special-building Christianity. To experience the glory of God together Christians need to gather face-to-face and heart-to-heart, not just line up in rows and see the backs of people’s heads. See Hebrews 10:25. Unfortunately, church history drifts from committed discipleship to critical scholarship to casual showmanship.
A God-designed marriage is a place for His glory. It is a spiritual vineyard where the True Vine grows grapes of glory for the new wine of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of a man and a woman ever committed and surrendered to daily obeying the present, living Jesus together. Godly marriage is a model — a visible prototype — of the invisible relationship between Christ and His totally committed followers. The best (the new wine) lasts, and true love endures and flourishes in a marriage when both the husband and the wife continue to cultivate and quench not God’s Spirit.
God wasn’t invented to make you happy. You were created to daily follow and obey Him. Self-glorification is a deceptive medication.
This is a glory quencher. Since cussing is completely irrational and erratic, you’d think that educated, logical people wouldn’t do it.
The hero in Christianity is Jesus. Exalt Him! All the rest of us have an equal status as His servants.If any Christian acts like he is superior to you, he’s being led by human ego, not by God’s Spirit.
My life isn’t about who I am but about who my Creator, the great I AM, is. His identity has captivated me! John the Baptist demonstrated the process of awakening from the striving life to the surrendered life. Talking about Jesus he said: “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
If you want to experience Jesus at work, look inside you. He’s knocking and asking you to open your heart’s door wider to Him. Open up and encounter His presence and power.
Remembrance of Jesus from the past without remembering, experiencing, and surrendering to His presence in the present is to forget and abandon His Good News that “I am with you always.” To miss the dynamic now of Bible verses and settle instead for merely recalling their former events and proclamations is a tragedy.
Without direct exposure to the inner light of “Christ in you” corruption darkens, hardens, and deceives the human conscience. Light shines wherever it’s not blocked. Step out of deceptive shadows and see.
Christians have been trained to hear what the preacher is saying to the institutional church instead of what the Spirit is saying to the family of God. I believe in the separation of church and spiritual state. No religious membership can make a person right with God. The only person I want molding me into his image is Jesus.
The great I AM and the slain LAMB OF GOD together demonstrate the unity of justice and mercy.The Old Testament focuses on religious rites, the New Testament on new life in Christ and Spirit-empowered righteousness.
The refusal to admit, expose, and turn away from injustice is a declaration that we trust in our merit more than in God’s mercy. People who don’t believe in God’s mercy can only hope in their own merit. That’s why people feel a need to say: “But I’m a good person.”
When guilt is denied, there are no grounds for mercy, forgiveness, or grace.If we offer our merit to God, it comes back marked “insufficient funds.” If we embrace His mercy, He replies, “Well done!”
Human nature has put mercy and forgiveness on trial and our jury of hardened human hearts has convicted them of being soft on crime.Forgiveness is reciprocal. If you’re unwilling to admit your great need for it, you won’t be willing to give it to others.
If you're still here
On planet earth
You need to hear
With your inner ear
To find out why
You're still here.
Christians have too low a view of Jesus. He is the Creator of everything and became a man. He is ever-present and all powerful. Yet few of us believe that Jesus can lead a church service all by Himself. If the risen Jesus isn’t the play caller, Christianity can feel like a game or a show.
I see Jesus knocking on the doors of churches and individuals pleading, “Let Me come in and take over.” I can’t be silent about it. Most churches and individual Christians claim that we let Jesus in, but we do it on our terms instead of His terms of unconditional surrender. Church often seems like fire prevention — keeping spiritual sparks to a minimum and never letting them interfere with a pastor’s control.
If a king could live inside all of his subjects, he’d have no need for an organizational chart. One king does that — Jesus Christ.Free and open-hearted expressions of love for Jesus will revitalize a church service and make it come alive.
The physical distance between you and God is zero. “In Him we live and move and have our being.” The distance between your heart and His, that’s another story.
When you’re being fed something that’s feeding and stirring your soul, you don’t watch the time. History shows that somebody needs to walk on the water with Jesus, so Christians don’t stay stuck in the boat of tradition. Step out in your congregation. If the pastor’s unwilling to make spiritual waves in church, somebody in the congregation (with humility, tenderness, and persistence) needs to stir up the gifts of God.
Numbers don’t count when Christians meet to experience the presence of Jesus. Church should be about encountering Jesus, not about counting the attendees.
Religion is convenient like a thermos. It can hold the warmth of God when we want it and keep it out when we don’t.Christians, “Let us approach God’s throne of grace,” not just hear a sermon about it. Come on, y’all, dare to do it. Hebrews 4:16.
Right or Left, our ideas and anger aren’t working. We need the living God to show us the way to well-being.Now is the time to stir up God’s inner fire with spiritual desire and make some Spirit-led waves.
If you follow Jesus You’ll learn to avoid Being annoyed Or paranoid.
By letting one man explain
How to maintain
The status quo
Church tends to train
People to contain
Their love for Jesus.Fast-faith,
Every moment
Scheduled,
Quickly in
And quickly out.
Duty done,
Then we can be about
What we really want to do.There's got to be more
To attending church
Than religious status,
Status quo,
And a sweet show.
We can sit in the boat,
Do church by rote,
And gently float
With religious tradition,
Or daily follow Jesus
Out on the water
And make some
Spirit-led waves.Let Jesus clearly show
In and through your life.
Let His presence in you grow
So that everyone will know
(Including your foe)
That you're carrying Him
And He's leading you
From within.Don't just sit
On these hot thoughs
And let them burn
In your head.
Share them!
Do them!
Church should make us remember that Jesus is dynamically present and active now (not just a vague remembrance from the past). Remember and refocus on Him in the now as you read this!
“Behold and become.” We need to do more than remember Jesus in the past. As heart-warming as that is, an occasional memorial or celebration of history isn’t enough for an awakening level of faith. We need to recognize and be reminded to be constantly aware of His presence and leadership in the now. “Do this to increase your awareness of My ongoing presence with you, in you, and through you.” Our faith needs to be far deeper than an annual collection of religious ceremonies. We desperately need to continually behold and become.
God’s Spirit leads to humility, truth, and justice. Many individuals and congregations don’t want to go there so they choose to follow a preacher or program instead.If churches would stand for truth, there wouldn’t be so many secrets that are hidden and hushed up in congregations.
For me following the church calendar is a distraction from my daily relationship with and dependence on the presence of the now Jesus and what He wants me to think, say, and do moment by moment. If I rigidly follow an annual, it may keep me from being led by the Spirit. It may cause me to read a Scripture that isn’t the one the Holy Spirit has chosen for me at that moment and to miss the one that He has.
So why did Jesus follow some of the religious format of His day? The age of the Spirit had yet to be released. In the age of the Spirit, Christ-followers don’t become united by following the same script throughout the year. We become united by beholding and obeying the risen, present Jesus every moment.
Would you like for someone you love to keep their eyes fixed on a calendar that schedules every year that you have together in the same way? Or would you rather they interact with you personally from the heart. I think Jesus feels the same way.
People who have a spiritually alive relationship with the living Jesus are too often quenched when they are systematized by organized religion. I’ve seen it happen many times.When one person controls the mic in church, he controls the narrative in the congregation and the full truth isn’t able to emerge.
In these troubled times the nations of the world desperately need gatherings of people who know how to listen to and obey Jesus together and to be the interactive, Spirit-led body of Christ.The purpose of preaching is to introduce people to the risen Jesus so they can and will listen to Him directly. Most preaching instead makes people dependent on and subservient to the preacher.
Religion is convenient like a thermos. It can hold the warmth of God when we want it and keep it out when we don’t. The people who are the least forgiving are often the people who need forgiveness the most. Jesus meets that need for those who know they need Him.
Love builds people up by stopping the inner thoughts, feelings, and desires that tear them down. If you want to stop the negative and tormenting things that are operating within you, follow the way of love. Never stop inwardly stopping the things that love stops!
Love stops evil. When love stops stopping, the things that love stops, stop being stopped.Love doesn’t win by competition, coercion, or compulsion but by caring, compassion, and commitment.
Love stops anger, resentment, and bitterness. Love stops self-focused desires, impatience, and unkindness. Love stops ego, self-seeking, and pride.
Love stops the delight in wrongdoing and ends the pleasure of sin. Love stops lying, dishonesty, and deception. Love stops discouragement, despair, and hopelessness.
Love stops worry, fear, and tormenting thoughts. Love stops enslaving desires, cravings, and addictions. Love stops apathy, spiritual passivity, and hard-heartedness.
Love stops boasting, envy, and jealousy. Love stops rudeness, insults, and bullying. Love stops recklessness, mistrust, and giving in to wrongdoing. Love stops the approval of wrongdoing and the disobedience of the conscience.
Love received and nurtured never fails to stop the self-destruction in a human heart. Instead, we humans let our pride and self-will cause us to reject and give up on love. It’s no excuse to say that you aren’t loved. Even in the darkest places someone will show you kindness and compassion. And no matter where you are God’s love is knocking on your heart’s door.
Focus on love until it comes clearly into the view of your heart:
Free Gas for Your Think Tank -- Short Reflections, Lasting Encouragement 