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.
Freedom from rules results in bondage to desires. When society trains people to play by their own rules and to follow their own desires without question, anarchy is at hand.
A desire dominated heart sees the conscience as a threat. The more you brake your conscience, the more you’ll break God’s rules. The more you bend God’s rules, the more you shove yourself down a slippery slope.
God’s rules are the road out of hell. His grace gives us supernatural power to make the uphill climb.Obeying God’s rules is a struggle not a bore, but breaking God’s rules bores a hole in your conscience and fills it with guilt.
To guarantee guilt, break God’s rules. To eliminate guilt, seek God’s forgiveness and strive to daily obey His commandments.
God’s commandments are the ground rules that can keep us from being led astray by our own desires.Grace doesn’t erase God’s rules. It gives us forgiveness when we break them and supernatural power to obey them.
Because of His love, God gave us rules to try to save us from choosing self-destruction. If you obey God’s rules, you’ll prevent much pain and avoid much guilt.
God’s rules were made to be kept, but rebellion chooses to disobey them. When we choose to follow fools and set aside God’s rules, life doesn’t go well.
You don’t learn to overcome guilt by breaking God’s rules, but by learning to “hunger and thirst for righteousness.” (Matthew 5:6.)Christianity presented from a stage doesn’t have the same effect as when we personally engage with and follow the living Jesus. Let Him empower you to follow God’s rules.
The phrase, “Let’s go Brandon,” came from a reporter misunderstanding a crowd shouting an X-rated insult of President Biden. It violates Christian love.
During a recent conference at John Hagee’s Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, attendees began to repeatedly shout it out in unison. For church attendees to shout “Let’s go Brandon,” is to throw out God’s love and embrace the spirit of antichrist.
John Hagee has liked to preach about the antichrist. Now his church is demonstrating the antichrist attitude. This illustrates how difficult it is for the one-man-sermon church model to produce humility and godly character.
Pharisees weren’t fair. They self-righteously believed they were correct so they abused people and had Jesus crucified. They still exist.Many pastors who dogmatically preached submission to their authority, now (ignoring Romans 13) preach rebellion against government.
For decades I’ve wanted to see church attendees shout out praise to Jesus together and compassionately minister to one another. Instead they’re choosing to shout a vulgar, hate phrase.
Christian politics is an oxymoron. History shows that politics has never been very Christ-like.
Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of world history. Jesus turned him down. Politics works though coercion; Jesus works through love.
Jesus said: “By their fruit you shall recognize them.” People who lack the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22) aren’t Christ-followers.Jesus said that He will separate the sheep (those who show His love) from the goats (those who hype Him like a show).
It’s easy to follow our human emotions, desires, and opinions. It’s costly to obey the living Jesus instead and love our enemies.
When a church emphasizes politics, it turns away from the invisible kingdom of God and embraces an earthly kingdom. Truth and feeling aren’t synonyms. Fact and opinion aren’t either.
Hate and love Change people’s heart. Hate hardens. Love tenderizes. How’s your heart?
Visits to church For a religious talk Have little effect On people’s daily walk.
To go to church and be unaware of the living Jesus is like going to a concert and being unaware of the music.When church took Jesus out of real life and compartmentalized Him to a Sunday service, it caused people to ignore His daily presence
To acknowledge Jesus an hour a week, but ignore Him the rest of the time, is hypocrisy.Religious rules won’t release your heart to overflow with joy, but the risen Jesus will!
To compartmentalize Jesus and separate Him from everyday life misses the point of the Incarnation: Emmanuel, “God with us.”
Religion and government didn’t like Jesus. They wanted Him dead but Jesus made ordinary people come alive with joy!
Turn Christianity into a mere Sunday morning routine.
Bore people and literally put them to sleep in their seats.
Quench the Holy Spirit.
Become a dangerous lullaby that sweetly rocks Christians into deep spiritual sleep.
Make people believe that they are right with God when they aren’t.
Cause people to feel safe and secure and protected from God’s commands.
Be an example of what Jesus called “the blind leading the blind.”
Make people feel comfortable (instead of repentant) about their sins.
Distract people from being aware of the awesome presence and power of the living Jesus.
Make people believe that a preacher or pastor is closer to God than they are.
Serve as a substitute for daily Bible reading and prayer.
Make people feel like they’re doing God a favor by attending and sitting through a sermon.
Try to coerce and control people.
Manipulate people for money.
Train people to act like the Bible Pharisees.
Cool off and calm down fired-up Christ-followers.
Hurt people deeply.
Reject people.
Make people believe that God is distant instead of present when we gather in His name.
Cause people to believe that God’s house is a physical building instead of human hearts.
Ignore the Bible’s 50+ “one another” commands.
Send people home without the fire of God burning brilliantly in their heart.
People who follow and obey the risen Jesus are the body of Christ. No building or religious organization or Sunday meeting can take our place.When Jesus said, “Follow Me,” He didn’t mean for us to join a religious organization and be passive spectators.
Christian doctrine says Jesus can run the universe; Christian practice says He’s not able to personally direct a church service.When we try to organize Jesus and make Him play by our rules and by our “order of worship,” we curtail His power.
People who say, “I’m trying to find myself,” often do everything that they can to avoid self-observation. You can’t know yourself if you’re unwilling to honestly observe both your abilities and your faults.Life is full of obvious wake-up calls, but like shutting off an alarm, it’s easy to ignore them.
Observation is often exchanged for assumption. You can’t observe what you’re unwilling to notice. Blind indifference fails to observe much that is obvious.
Many people will ignore your observations, but that’s okay. Express them anyway.
When our observations are off base our analysis will be too. Unobserved details make your opinion inaccurate.
Beauty abounds, but unobserved beauty is always unappreciated. Creativity begins with observation. Freedom does too.
Two enlightening experiments: 1) Sit somewhere and observe your surroundings; 2) Sit with your eyes closed and observe your thoughts.
You don’t have to wander To observe remarkable things That are filled with amazement And wonder.
Bias Makes true observation By us Impossible, Especially if we’re unaware We’re bias.
Evaluation without extended observation is usually short sighted and inaccurate. Solid analysis requires honest surveillance.Emotional attachments cloud our observations of life and often lead us to inaccurate opinions.
Observe your thoughts, emotions and desires. Notice their impact. Embrace the helpful ones, resist the harmful ones.It’s easy to replace observation with recitation by stating what we feel instead of pursuing what’s real.
Uncomfortable truth is easily unnoticed and unobserved. For me, life goes better when I listen to my conscience for answers instead of trying to override it and create my own answers.
No matter how a church meets, if people don’t notice, observe, and interact with the living Jesus, it’s just running through religion. Run in the inner freedom that Jesus offers–freedom from bondage to our desires, thoughts, and emotions.
Everybody you meet is weak. We all struggle with defeat. In that you’re not unique.
Weakness is a guide That can free us From enslavement to ego And the prison of pride.
The realization of our weakness frees us from pride and enables us to surrender to God’s strength. If people say you’re weak, have the strength to agree with them.
Life’s better when we’re no longer dominated by desires and entrapped by ego. To ignore your inner weakness isn’t a sign of strength. It’s a sign of denial. A sneer is a sign of fear.
When we refuse to admit our weakness, we’re not free. We’re in bondage to pride and deception.The more we admit our weakness, the softer our heart becomes and the more mercy and kindness we have for other people.
The greatest weakness is pride because by preventing us from admitting our other weaknesses, it keeps us forever stuck with them.Combat demonstrates that humans are weak, not strong–any of us are able to be snuffed out in a moment.
Humbly letting people see your inner weakness encourages them and opens their heart to compassion. Masking your weaknesses with excuses and explanations is prompted by fear.
Human nature is weak. If you’re a person, everybody knows that you have weaknesses, no matter how much you try to disguise them.
When weaknesses train us to feel remorse and to make amends, they lead us to healing, recovery, and inner freedom.Tears are liquid light that reveals a compassionate heart. They’re a sign of humility. Almost no one takes pride in their tears.
It requires strength and courage to humbly admit weakness. Acute awareness of our weakness makes us willing to be helped by God.
Reliance on God isn’t passive. It requires a rigorous, ongoing pursuit to subdue self and surrender in obedience to Him.
Spiritual vertigo Will make you go Stumbling about, Living without Long-term hope.
Ask God, “Are You real?” And let Him reveal His presence.
To be Spirit-led Is to do What Christ in you Tells you to. Roman’s 8:14.
The ekklesia At Laodicea Became lukewarm And turned into church. Revelation 3:14.
“The truth will set you free.” It’s time for Christians to gather and allow everyone present the freedom to obey the Spirit.When Christian worship is overmanaged and overcontrolled, there’s little or no room for the living Jesus to do anything.
Christians are trained to talk with God by giving Him a list of what we want, instead of having heart-felt conversation with Him.We need to discover the presence and the reality of the living Jesus, not just to learn information about Him. “O taste and see.”
True Christianity is based on Jesus’ manifestation, not on religious manipulation.You don’t make disciples by manipulating people with religion. You make passive, obligated church attendees.
Christians have the living Jesus to teach us the Bible. We need to be trained to listen to Him, not to a Bible-answer-man. Jesus said to make disciples, but it’s much easer to make sermon-hearers.
A biblical pastor guides people to discover and obey the risen Jesus. He doesn’t attach people to Himself or to a religious organization. Too few Christians have been taught how to learn directly from the risen Jesus.
True Christian leadership is through godly influence, not through titles or positional authority.Christian leaders are recognized by their fruit–the demonstration of their surrender to Jesus by their lifestyle and character.
When one person can control a church, people have no protection against bad leadership. Mutual accountability is safer. Christians need to be coached to follow the risen Jesus, not manipulated to follow a human leader.
Instead of depending on the living Jesus and the Bible for guidance, Christians have been trained to depend on a one-man pastor.When one person is responsible for explaining Scripture, he replaces Scripture’s authority with His own.We learn to follow Jesus through action, not just through instruction.
Christians need to put a spotlight on the living Jesus, not on church or preachers or politics or patriotism or pride or prophets.There seem to be bored Christians and Christians stirred up about politics, but where are those who are passionately excited about Jesus?
Discipleship isn’t manipulation or control. Disciples freely obey Jesus because He has become amazingly real to them.
Disciples are made by introducing people to the risen Jesus and the Bible, and by helping them to listen to and obey Him daily.If you aren’t following the living Jesus instead of your own desires, feelings, and opinions, you can’t help others follow Him.
Until we have the faith to daily do what Jesus commands, we’re only pretending to believe.It requires no faith or obedience to hear a sermon or listen to Christian radio, but discipleship requires both faith and obedience.
“Self-ized” Christianity that blends your feelings, opinions, and desires with the Gospel falls far short of the real thing.Too many Christians are incarcerated in religious pride, spiritual passivity, and church programs.
It’s time for faith and grace! Faith is believing in Jesus enough to obey Him. Grace is the supernatural power to do so.
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