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.
The gap between Religious information And inner reformation Is huge. God’s grace Will close that gap If with humility and repentance You begin to practice Ongoing obedience To the living Jesus, Now present through the Holy Spirit. Let Him reside And endlessly abide In you And powerfully be your guide As you continually confide In Him.
Close the gap! The Bible says that God is working in you. It’s good to pay attention to what He’s doing in you. Religion talks about Jesus like He’s not in the room, but He is if we gather in His name.
Human hearts Are made to radiate Love and peace, Not to shut down And suffocate.
Hard hearts Build walls That block the way When peace calls.
Making peace In your own heart Is a lost art. Today many people Are falling apart.
Modern media distracts people with noise and entertainment, but it rarely creates inner peace.However, you can learn to make inner peace and calm the storm within you.
When hearts aren’t peaceful, neither will society be. The first place to make peace is in your own heart.If you don’t train yourself to make and maintain peace in your own heart, you won’t be a very good peacemaker for anyone else.
When peace flees from my heart, I need peacemakers who will listen, comfort, and pray with me. Kind words are peace talk. Angry words make the heart hostile.
I look for peacemakers who make my heart calm and serene. I try to avoid people & things that disturb my inner peaceful scene.Every time I find a peacemaker who listens to me with kindness and encourages me with hope, I’m grateful for the peace I feel because spending time with such a peacemaker makes my heart peaceful.
Any society that feasts on endless hype, anxiety, and anger won’t be peaceful. True peacemaking is heart-connection, not just mental negotiation.
Peacemakers don’t just make peace between people. They touch the heart and make peace within people. Anxious or angry people can’t spread peace. Only calm, peaceful people can do that.
Inner peace is not outdated! (Search: Elephants INspiring The Room.)
Pentecost was a Jewish feast day, A religious holiday Celebrated once a year, But when God’s Spirit came Pentecost became a way Of living every single day Overflowing from within With God’s presence and power While saying and doing Whatever the Spirit does say.
May God melt The chill In Christian hearts And give them The endless thrill Of the real Holy Spirit!
Christianity is about Following Jesus Thru thick and thin Until the end, Not about settling in And using Him As an excuse For camping and glamping.
The supernatural activity of “Christ in you” is much simpler than we imagine. Every day is Holy Spirit Day! Through the Holy Spirit we can endlessly breathe the breath of God and be animated by the life of God.
Christians tend to over-estimate the heroes of the Bible and under-estimate what Jesus wants to do in and through them, but God is no respecter of persons. His doors are now open to “Whosoever will.”
In the Bible, the Holy Spirit was practical. Now it seems that we mostly limit Him to the theological.
Pentecost is more than a historical, religious day to celebrate and remember and it’s more than a mere mindset. It’s a transformed heart passionately set on daily following and obeying the omnipresent, resurrected Jesus and endlessly overflowing with the power and desire to do so!
The Bible tells Christians to “Quench not the Spirit.” That means that God’s Spirit is going to live and work in us incessantly if we won’t hinder Him. Now that’s a great awakening–letting the Spirit lead and guide us unhindered by our self-will.
Christ-followers can do much more than “only imagine” Jesus’ presence. We can experience His presence throughout the day!
Christians like to quote half a verse: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” Unfortunately, they usually leave out the last part of that verse: “But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit.”
If you’re a Christian and are unaware of Christ’s presence, guess who hid from the Spirit’s revelation? You got rigid and you did!
I think we humans often over-expect when it comes to God’s voice and His presence, like Elijah did in the cave. He expected to hear God’s voice in the earthquake, wind, and fire, but he didn’t. Then he “heard” the “still, small voice” in his heart. I’ve found that my awareness of God comes most when I’m quiet and trying to notice God’s “voice” and activity within me instead of outside of me.
Cold hearts filled with competition, alienation, and anger create most of humanity’s problems. Don’t let your heart be one of them!Christ’s compassion in a human heart is like water to a sponge, without it the heart gets hard and brittle.
Humans look alike–nose, arms, ears, and legs–it’s easy to recognize a fellow human. Look closely and you’ll see the image of God in them.
Christians are called to be fluid and to flow with the living Jesus, but also to be rigid and to our resist ungodly desires.We all have desires and feelings that we didn’t choose, but we don’t have to let them abuse or use us. We can fight against them and follow the living Jesus instead.
When church is rigid, Christians languish in religious routine, and they can “only imagine” Jesus. When it’s fluid and Spirit-directed they can learn to flow with the living Jesus throughout the day.
Anybody can be rigid And tell the risen Jesus no. It takes courage to be fluid And to go with His caring flow.
To disavow And not allow Christ’s compassion in your heart Is to miss how Humans can be inwardly connected.
Experiencing the Holy Spirit as a gathered people requires a group openness to the Holy Spirit. We need to surrender our plans, programs, agendas, and control and instead trust the living Jesus to actively lead us and direct us like a conductor directing an orchestra. When we do that people connect heart-to-heart and amazing things begin to happen.
I experienced the presence and leadership of the Holy Spirit on Saturday. Someone invited my wife and I to a gathering of “house churches” that was going to meet on a sheep farm in Galatin, TN. Always ready for a Holy Spirit adventure, we went, not knowing what to expect. About 50 people had brought lawn chairs and had set them in a big circle in the grass. We squeezed our chairs in. The group consisted of Whites, Blacks, and an Asian, from babies to seventy-somethings and everything in between. My wife and I only knew five of the people.
A man stood up and welcomed everybody and said that we were going to meet according to 1 Corinthians 14:26 and that means that anyone present may share what God puts on their heart. After a brief introduction and prayer, he sat down. Then, for the next two or so hours, people began to share as they were prompted by the Spirit. There was an amazing sense of God’s presence and peace (and order) as we looked at each other face to face and saw the love and joy of God manifesting in and through people around the circle. Afterwards we shared communion, a meal, and wonderful koinonia.
Last night my wife and I had a similar meeting with some students at Lincoln Tech School in Nashville. We are blessed to get to meet with them for a meal and Holy Spirit led meeting every Sunday night. When we got home, I picked up a book (written in 1675 by Philip Jacob Spener) that I’ve been reading. about how to reform the church and I saw this: “In addition to our customary services with preaching, other assemblies would also be held in the manner in which Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 14:26-40.”
Scads of shootings in America are shouting out that human life has been devalued. It’s time to re-value human life. Our lives matter! Here are some practical ways to do that:
Treat your own life with respect by overcoming self-destructive thoughts and behaviors.
Act like your life matters by taking care of your physical and mental health.
Avoid watching, reading, or listening to anything that devalues or insults any human life.
Focus your attention on the good that people do, not on the bad things they do.
Volunteer. Be proactive in serving others.
Realize that anger, hostility, and/or hate cause you and others to devalue human life.
Acknowledge that the most innocent form of human life shouldn’t be regarded as disposable.
Openly renounce the concept of devaluing people because of their skin color.
Refuse to devalue people because you disagree with or disapprove of their beliefs and/or behaviors.
Frequently connect heart-to-heart with people who think and see things differently than you do.
Be kind and respectful to everyone.
Treat every member of the human race as a vital part of humanity–the most valuable thing on planet earth.
Avoid being careless with your life and other people’s lives. Pay attention to safety for yourself and others.
I believe that many Christians go along with and repeat miracle stories too easily–without adequate evidence and without being fully convinced. They sometimes even use the phrase “Fake it till you make it,” to justify their stance. But is that faith, or is it presumption?
I admire Thomas. I think Thomas was searching for a reason to believe. He was wanting faith, not presumption that was based on his friends’ and fellow disciple’s belief. So, Thomas insisted on evidence. And wow! Jesus gave him the evidence by showing Thomas His wounds and inviting Thomas to touch them. When Thomas experienced the evidence, doubts vanished and Thomas cried out to Jesus, “My Lord and My God!”
The Holy Spirit brought me to unbelief so that I could believe. I thought I was a Christian and on my way to Heaven because I was a faithful, church-attending Presbyterian. Then one day in church this question came to my mind: “If you were born a Hindu, what would you be today?” After thinking about it, I realized that if I had been raised with Hinduism as the only religion I was exposed to, I’d be a Hindu.
Suddenly another question came to my mind: “Why do you think you’re a Christian?” That made me realize that the only reason I thought I was a Christian was because of my upbringing. I was exercising presumption, not faith. As I thought about it, I realized that I didn’t personally believe in Jesus, the Bible, or Christian doctrine, but just assumed I did. However, I realized that I did truly believe in some sort of Creator. At that point I rejected Christianity and asked the Creator to show me the truth.
Two years later I wandered into a Spirit-led Christian meeting on my college campus and had a life-changing encounter with the living Jesus and I’ve never been the same. When I tell people about that encounter it still brings me to tears. Now I’m convinced Jesus is real, not because of what other people say, but because He continually reveals Himself and amazingly demonstrates His reality directly to me.
John tells us to “Test the spirits whether they are from God for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 John 1:4.) Exercising caution and investigating what people say is wise. The Bereans in the book of Acts, even checked out what Paul said with Scripture before they accepted it. Christians would be healthier spiritually if we all acted like the Bereans.
Christ-followers can do much more than “only imagine” God’s presence. We can experience it throughout the day!
Amazing grace and amazing mysticism both demonstrate God’s glory! Let’s embrace them both!
Christian mysticism is to experience direct connection with and communication from the living resurrected Heaven-based Jesus through His real-life presence in the ever-present Holy Spirit. It’s not some kind of nebulous, subjective, or imaginary experience. It is ultimate reality.
Christ-centered mysticism is supernatural power from on high. It changes the phrase “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” from mere theology into the inner objectivity of joyous life-changing actuality.
Too many Christians run from mysticism. They say that such direct encounters with the living Jesus aren’t possible. They keep Jesus at arm’s length by using the academic approach to Him instead of the mystic approach. However, the simplest sincere prayer is a form of mysticism–seeking to connect directly with God.
Yesterday my wife and I were praying on the phone with a couple friend. My wife asked them to ask God to open doors of ministry opportunities for me. Sam began to quote Acts 1:6-7. As he quoted it, he paraphrased it by putting my name in it and saying that I will be a witness in various locations. This morning I went to a blog I read regularly, and the author had started today’s post with the very same Scripture verses.
So, is Christian mysticism real? Is Jesus really living inside of people and communicating with them today? What are the odds against my friend Sam applying a Scripture to my life one evening and a blog writer who doesn’t know Sam using the same Scripture the next day? If that only happened once, you might write it off as coincidence, but things like that happen to me almost every day.
For more than a year, Jesus has been telling me that He isn’t letting me see a lot of fruit from my writing to protect me from my pride. A couple of weeks ago I read about a Christian book written in 1675 that I had never read, “Pia Desideria” (“Heartfelt Desire for a God-Pleasing Reform of the True Evangelical Church.”) by Philip Jacob Spener, so I ordered it. Last night I began to read it and came to these words by Mr. Spener: “If God does not give you the pleasure of seeing the result of your work quickly, perhaps He intends to hide it from you, lest you become too proud of it. Seeds are there, and you may think they are unproductive, but do your part in watering them, and ears will surely sprout and in time become ripe.”
Receive and obey thoughts from God. Resist, refute, and reject thoughts that go against Him.
Tormenting thoughts and desires Don’t have to be obeyed. When persistently resisted They’ll eventually fade.
One day I found The living Jesus, Or rather He found me. He’s the elephant In the room of Christian religion, Hidden from the wise, But revealed to Humble, broken people. (Matthew 11:25.) Here’s how He Streams in my life!
The active presence of the living Jesus is the elephant in the room in institutional Christianity. It’s time to recognize and focus on Him!
The living Jesus is so powerful, grand, and incredible yet so easily ignored.You can’t follow and obey the risen Jesus if He’s unnoticed.When a church makes listening to and obeying the risen Jesus irrelevant, it makes Him the elephant in the church service.
Once I couldn’t see Jesus anywhere, but now I see Him everywhere I go. Jesus is the elephant in all of life’s rooms. I want to introduce Him to as many people as I can.
When I met Jesus, I wrote, “Jesus is alive!” on the blackboards in my Presbyterian church. After the service, someone had erased them all. I felt like they wanted to keep the risen Jesus as the church’s elephant in the room.
Christian doctrine without demonstration can be dull. Demonstration without solid doctrine can be deceptive. We need both.Regularly attending church can be a first step to discipleship, but many other steps are needed. Romans 8:14.
Many people claim to be citizens of the kingdom of God but lack proof of citizenship–the fruit of the Spirit. (Galatians 5:22.)As citizens of the kingdom of God, Christ-followers are supposed to be governed by the Lord Jesus, not by their desires, feelings, and opinions.
Proud heads analyze the Gospel, but hungry, humble hearts embrace, demonstrate, and radiate it.Words said from the head might turn a few heads, but words spoken from the heart heal hurting hearts.
Dreams That don’t stream With hope Often seem Farfetched.
Conflict streams chaos and pain. Peace making streams reconciliation and healing. Be a peacemaker.
Pentecost demonstrates that Christianity began with people livestreaming God’s Spirit, not with people being passively downloaded with religious lectures. When people spontaneously move with Jesus–rejoicing, smiling, praying, crying, laughing, singing, testifying, encouraging, exhorting, worshipping, serving–they’re livestreaming His presence.
When you let the risen Jesus freely livestream thru your consciousness, the fruit of the Spirit comes rushing forth.The love and power that flows from Christ never runs dry, but we can ignore it and/or walk away from it.
To start streaming Jesus, Let God’s Spirit speak In you, To you, And through you. Then say what He says.
One day Jesus Came streaming Into my heart Overflowing me With ongoing awe And inspiration That’s never dried up!
“Your best life” isn’t good enough. If it was you wouldn’t need for God’s grace to stream in your life. When there’s a lack of the fruit of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit isn’t streaming.
Christians have embraced streaming technology but ignored “streaming theology”–letting the risen Jesus freely stream forth in their heart.No matter how inspired a sermon, lectures about Jesus are nothing like personally streaming His presence.
Love listens with compassion, not necessarily with approval. Unconditional love doesn’t mean unconditional approval. Stream God’s love.
When Christ-followers focus on and proclaim the living Jesus Christ, livestreaming His wisdom (Christ’s supernatural revelation and resurrection power), we can tip a small domino in people’s heart that begins the “glory to glory” process of spiritual growth and maturity. Christ wants to powerfully work in people so that they can be inspired to daily strive to release and use His inner energy to tip over the rebellion and darkness that is hindering maturity in themselves and other people.
