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’ birth, although surrounded by unusual events, was a normal birth. His conception, however, was one of a kind!
To keep picturing the infant Jesus in a manger is cute, but He’s not there anymore. Now He wants to live inside of you!
Jesus’ baby steps led to the cross. Now He calls us to take steps that follow Him.
Jesus, What a birth! Emmanuel Has come to earth!
Night shift shepherds heard
The sky full
Of wonderful words
And what they saw
Filled them with awe.
Bright night light
And baby talk
From the sky
Caused those sheep keepers
To be joyful leapers.It's common knowledge
That Jesus was born
And placed in a manger,
But if He's not been born
And living inside of you,
You're a stranger
To the kingdom of God.
Tiny statues to honor “baby Jesus” make us forget that He’s now grown up, resurrected, and present and active in the world today as King of Kings.
Would you rather people think of you as a baby or as an adult? Maybe Jesus feels the same way.Jesus has been babied annually for many centuries. Isn’t time to realize that Mary’s baby boy isn’t a child any more?
Our desires often lie to us and tell us that external things will heal our emotional pain, when all they do is mask it.If people were as willing to unmask their heart as they are their face, the world would be a better place.
When your thoughts, desires, and emotions are inwardly aggressive and trying to override your free will, you don’t have to let them.Perhaps instead of trying to control others, or letting others control us, we should control our own thoughts, feelings and desires.
Maybe to meditate and ponder yourself into a state of wonder and awe, can give you more emotional relief than to medicate yourself.Our thoughts, feelings, and desires should be questioned and examined to see if they’re true, not bowed to as gods.
Temporary relief from emotional pain isn’t healing. We need more than short-term pain removal. We need inner change.
We clean dirt off of our body, but often neglect to clean our mind and heart, forgetting that inner dirt is even more damaging.Perhaps, instead of being a victim of our emotional pain, we, ourselves, are enabling it by our thoughts and behaviors.
When you’re unaware of a particular emotion, you’re not feeling it. Distract yourself from negative feelings; focus on positive.
The goal of guilt is not to make us feel bad, but to motivate us to improve our thoughts and behaviors.When you feel a need to try to make other people think that you’re confident, you’re not very confident.
When you mix politics and religion, you get religitics. Religitics believes that government should impose some religious views on people.
It’s hard to trust in politics (human kingdoms) and trust in God’s kingdom at the same time. They tend to be competitors.The goal of true religion isn’t to make people behave. It’s to connect them to the living God so He can heal and change their heart and their behavior.
Religion can be imposed on people, but faith comes by inspiration and revelation. Faith looks to God for answers; politics looks to government and politicians for answers.
Politics is about governmental power and coercion. Religion should be about spiritual power and compassion.Politics can quickly distract religion from a God-focus. Religion can inflate a politician’s ego and sense of self-righteousness.
Government forces people to obey. It’s based on coercion. Religion should be voluntary, not forced.Politics tries to rule people externally. The living Jesus wants to rule them from within.
When people feel their religious faith is weak, they sometimes look to politicians as a way to make themselves feel powerful.When politics and faith are intermingled, some people begin to act like all their political views are God-given.
Jesus set a boundary between religion and politics when He said: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”
A country belongs to all of its citizens. It doesn’t just belong to those of a particular religion or a particular political party.
Did the risen Jesus compare gatherings of His followers to the Jewish Menorah? I believe He did so in the book of Revelation.
The apostle (sent one) named John, who had been one of Jesus’ closets disciples, had a vision where he saw the living, resurrected Jesus, full of His eternal glory, standing in the midst of seven golden lampstands. Jesus told John that the lampstands were seven ekklesias (gatherings of Christ-followers meeting under the direct headship of the living Jesus, commonly mistranslated into English as churches).
What were those lampstands? The Hebrew word for lampstand is menorah. God told Moses to make a special lampstand (menorah) for the Tabernacle which was later used in the Jewish Temple. Moses was told to make it out of gold and that it was to have 6 lamp branches plus a center lamp (7 total). Originally it was 7 oil lamps made together out of gold, not a candelabra.
The book of 1 Samuel calls it “the lamp of God.” The Bible describes it in Exodus 21:35-40 and Zechariah 4:2.
When Jesus identified the menorahs that surround Him as ekklesias He revealed some of the characteristics of gatherings of His followers as the body of Christ.
When Christ-followers gather in His name as the lamp of God (under His personal headship and direction), He is truly present and active, and actuality demonstrates His reality in their midst.
Those gathered are set aflame with the oil of the Holy Spirit.
Although Christ-followers are individuals, they are one in the golden bond of the unity of the Spirit.
They all are able to freely contribute light to the meeting.
No lamp has preeminence over the others.
These observations are not just theological or theoretical. I have personally experienced them hundreds of times. They are literally manifested when ekklesia meets and allows the risen Jesus in their midst to be the leader of the gathering.
Every state of mind
Isn't beneficial.
Some are detrimental.
It's not judgmental
To know the difference.
To be universally liked Is an unattainable goal. It’s better to seek Peace of soul.
People often frown When they’re bogged down By the thoughts and feelings They carry around.
If we try denial For a while, It often becomes An ongoing lifestyle.
If you feel a need to be unkind, don’t be unkind to people. Be unkind to the thoughts, feelings, and desires that are tormenting you.
No matter how strong they may feel, our thoughts, feelings, and desires aren’t impossible to control.Yesterday’s options may be gone, but if we search for them, today still offers many options for a better life.
What you see in the mirror isn’t as important as what you see in your heart. Wash your face, but also clean out your heart.The thoughts, feelings, and desires that you allow to freely stay within you will eventually assume control of you.
As humans, we discover that much that we desire, much that we’re drawn to, isn’t good for us.When you’re being inwardly assaulted by thoughts, feelings, or desires, resist with the same effort you’d resist physical assault.
Hurt and angry people try to find comfort by blaming others. True freedom comes by taking responsibility for our own feelings.
Unconditional approval destroys discernment and embraces both good and evil equally.When I’m unaware that some of my thoughts, feelings, & desires are unaligned with truth and reality, I’m deceived.
Insecurity causes people to feela need to verbally attack anyone who disagrees with them.If you can’t disagree with someone without being mean, you have a bigger problem than you think they have.
I find time continually sailing by. I watch the future pass by me, and the present moment move into the past.
It’s time for those who love Jesus to be freed from human religious control and to boldly follow and obey God’s Spirit.Let the elders (older Christians) return to their first love and go all out for Jesus!To “seek first the kingdom of God” is to aggressively pursue and surrender to the presence of King Jesus in your daily life.
Jesus is my inner mentor. The more I focus on, listen to and obey Him, the more love, joy, peace and other fruit of the Spirit I have.
It’s not time To hide God’s light When people say It’s alright To do whatever you feel.
When the living Jesus Is at hand Church won’t go As we have planned.
There’s a rare kind of learning, beyond remembering and analyzing, that reveals the wisdom to live free of negative emotions and self-harming thoughts.Although we learn much information, if we neglect to learn how to successfully manage our thoughts, feelings, and desires, we won’t be truly happy.
Learning many facts but failing to learn how to create an inner, mental and emotional environment of peace and joy, falls far short of a full education.Many people have never learned how to be attentive to and contemplative of what goes on in their own heart and mind, to discern what is helpful and what is harmful.
Harmful thoughts, feelings, and desires abound inside us. If we don’t learn how to protect our heart and mind from them, they torment and manipulate us. True education involves learning to live better by managing our thoughts, desires, and emotions.
Don’t waste your anger. Get angry at the thoughts, feelings, and desires that are tormenting you.
When we disobey our conscience, it sounds the alarm of guilt, warning us that we’ve gone off track. When we let our pride imprison and silence our conscience, we’re in trouble.
Repentance isn’t a religious thing. It’s real. It releases us from inner bondage, renews, and regenerates. A full education teaches us about that.
Our self-will that refuses to surrender to and submit to the living God is the cause of many of our problems.We can learn to escape inner turmoil and to daily experience Christ’s peaceful stillness of mind and heart. Inner freedom can’t be systematized or programmed.
We too often Let life be annoying, When it’s something We should be enjoying.
Being alive gives you an ongoing opportunity to adjust and optimize the settings on your thoughts and feelings.An analytical mind sees little meaning in life, but a deeply happy heart dances with destiny.
I see sadness as a warning light that I’m mismanaging my thoughts and emotions. I believe I’m designed to be happy. Being alive is vastly under appreciated. That’s because being alive without feeling alive gets boring.
To feel alive, ponder. To ponder is to wonder with your mind and to appreciate all the inspiration that is both around you and within you. Try pondering this: The future is never far away; the end of this sentence is the future of its beginning.
Living can be merely existing, or we can make it much more than that. Make your life more. Living from the heart is where we find meaning and purpose. Search for: Elephants INspiring The Room.
I believe that Christ came to give our dead and fallen world life. He can do the same with you, if you welcome His presence within.
