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.
Baby walkers help
Infants and toddlers
Move themselves around
Before they learn
To walk on their own.
They're not designed
As a replacement
For learning to walk
And shouldn't be used
By older children
Or adults.
Sometimes Christians need help
Learning to walk
In the Spirit.
Teaching, sermons,
Rituals, liturgy,
Programmed meetings,
Commentaries and studies,
Can all be helpful,
But participating in them
Should never be the goal
Of the Christian life.
Those things are tools,
Like a baby walker,
To train Christ-followers
To be lead by the Spirit,
To listen to and obey
The resurrected Jesus.
"Therefore let us move beyond
The elementary teachings
About Christ
And be taken forward to maturity."
Become always aware
Of the living Jesus,
The way a driver
Doing other things
(Conversation, eating,
Listening to books or music)
Needs to stay
Continually aware
Of the road.
This insight
Can bring your
Soul's night
Bright,
Invisible light.
When unpleasant memories try to enter your mind, don’t let them thru the door. Let bad memories be lessons learned, not patterns to repeat.
You can’t remember everything. Why not choose good things to remember and the bad things to forget?
You can attach your heart to what is positive and uplifting and detach it from what is negative and down drifting. Some memories will add joy to your day; others will steal your joy away. Choose joy today!
Memories can exalt you or make you distraught. Choose the ones that lift you up, not the ones that tear you down.
When you think about your past, all you find is memories. Enjoy the best ones. Keep the worst ones out of the present.
Uplifting thoughts sometimes flow thru your mind. Notice them. Let them encourage you. Good or bad, your choices for today work together to create your consequences in the future.
When you get
To the last page
Of your life's book,
You'll be where you are
Because of the paths
That you took.
People like to brag and say, “I have no apologies to make to anyone,” (as if they had never done anything wrong to anybody).Pride refuses to apologize for wrongs it has done. Love is quick to. (The apology that pride tells you not to make, is often the most important one to make.)
A true apology humbly offers regret for wrongdoing, without making excuses, and then does what it can to make amends. A sincere apology requires courage; excuses don’t.
If you allow yourself to feel no sincere regret for what you’ve done, saying “I’m sorry,” is empty words.
Even when you’ve been offered no apologies, you can still choose to forgive and dump your heavy load of hurt.When you’re looking for an apology and don’t get it, forgive anyway. Don’t let the person who hurt you keep you full of resentment.Carrying unforgiveness often causes you more pain than what a person did when they hurt you.
Innocence is unattainable. The only way to be free from guilt is through apology and unearned forgiveness. To fail to confess is to acquiesce to guilt. You don’t need an attorney, a priest, or a church service to make a confession. You can come clean with God anytime and anywhere.
If we would sincerely apologize for where we’ve harmed people and give up wanting them to apologize to us, we’d be much happier.To make no apologies when you’ve done wrong to someone, is to choose to ignore the pain you’ve caused them.
Confession is like taking a shower (or flushing a toilet). It washes away the grime of guilt. Confession is courageous; honesty is heroic! Confession will set you free from the heavy load of lies and deception.
If you’re feeling guilty, A sincere apology Can set you free.
Without apology, Guilt lingers And pride prevails.
Firearm training? When loving-your-enemy-training is as popular as firearm training, we’ll be on the road to curbing gun violence.Society recognizes the need to train for physical health, but too often ignores the need to train for mental health.
Physical weapons force compliance. Spiritual weapons release so much love and light that they create voluntary compliance.Violence can physically subdue a person, but spiritual weapons can transform human hearts.
It’s dangerous for people to be armed with physical weapons, but unarmed with the fruit of the Spirit. The smart weapons are the spiritual ones.
Arm yourself with compassion and kindness. Learn to use them as weapons against evil.
When you put on God’s armor and live in awareness of His presence, you don’t feel a need to protect yourself.If compassion was consistently glorified as heroic and violence seen as weakness, the world would be better off. Nonviolence requires the ultimate courage.
The supernatural, spiritual gifts, listed in the Bible, are powerful spiritual weapons, that you can learn to use.Some people are so concerned about the “right to bear arms” that they ignore their right to learn to use spiritual weapons.
Being physically armed can help you “stand your ground,” but being spiritually armed will make you a better person. Spiritual weapons boldly confront evil with love, not with hate.
Only spiritual weapons can protect you from anxiety and discouragement. Guns are useless in fighting emotional duress.If you haven’t fought inner battles to become secure in your own mind and heart, nothing outside you can give you peace.
To use spiritual weapons is not to be unarmed. It’s to be armed with the real presence of the living Jesus.
If you’re defeated in your heart and mind, outward victory means little. First defeat your inner enemies and secure peace within.
Listening to your thoughts and feelings can miss you up. Commanding them to align with Jesus will set you free! First win within and then without a doubt you’ll win without. Be an inner winner!
“Christ in you” isn’t a coping strategy. It’s the living Jesus filling you with glorious hope! Violence is a sign and symptom of fear, but the Bible says that “Love casts out fear.”“Fight the good fight of faith,” not the bad fight of anger, violence, and hate.
The safest place a person can be is in the center of God’s will, armed with the fruit of the Spirit.How we need spiritual weapons! “Since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude.” 1 Peter 4:1
Too many people have lost their marvels. Now they see their amazing life as drab and boring.
There’s so much to marvel at in life: nature, wisdom, technology, science, compassion, spirituality, the universe. It’s fun to find and appreciate the marvelous.
Don’t let your mind make the marvelous seem mundane. Wake up to its amazement.
Every human being is a marvel and carries a reflection of God’s image. Sometimes you have to look hard to find it, but it’s there.
Christians too often confuse Jesus with a program or a church service, instead of experiencing Him as the marvel that He is.Christians won’t experience the marvel of connecting heart-to-heart unless we listen to each other, yet church is set up so that we only listen to one man.
To marvel in the presence of God is much more powerful than trying to understand Him. When I read the Bible with an open heart, it makes me marvel and I don’t want to stop.
Derek Chauvin’s conviction for the murder of George Floyd breaks a pattern. History is full of abusers of black people (many who are considered heroes) who were never held accountable for their actions.
The politics of race has prejudiced untold juries against convicting abusers of black people. More than 4,200 lynchings of black people (between 1880 and 1970) have been verified. Politics caused almost no one to be convicted for those horrible crimes.
The details of the cruel legacy toward black Americans have been mostly left out of our history books. (Although demons of racial injustice have stirred up much hate and cruelty, they have been mostly unnoticed by everyone except their victims.) Since history’s perpetrators of racial injustice are dead, it’s too late to bring those abusers of black people to justice, but it’s never too late to openly and humbly expose the truth of the brutal things that they did.
Now the question is: After this breakthrough of justice for George Floyd, will we continue to break the pattern of color-blindness toward racial injustice against blacks both in the present and in history by opening our eyes to truth?
Being silent about racial disparity isn’t being “color-blind.” It’s looking the other way. It’s time to open the blinds and see racial views more clearly.
Color-blind?When police are on the lookout for a dangerous black male, every black man is a suspect.In a color-blind nation, a white man and a black man stopped by police will be treated the same if they ask why.
Sizing people up bythe color of their skin” is quick and easy; by “the content of their character,” takes time and patience. The idea that skin color denotes different kinds of people is a giant like that continually tears America apart. We need to move beyond human color-categories.
White man, Black man, Either can Be a threat But I like Most the ones I’ve met.
The color of skin Someone’s wrapped in Can’t begin To define Who they are Within.
Colin K.
And Derek C.
Both bent a knee
That released strife.
One tried to save life
The other didn't.
A truly "color-blind" country
Would honor and memorialize
All victims of injustice
Regardless of skin tone.
Approaching Jesus through analysis leads to theology. Approaching Him through pondering leads to adoration.
Mary treasured and pondered in her heart, the amazing words and prophesies about Him. As His mother, her heart loved and adored Him. Be like Mary!Christianity without pondering, mystery, awe, worship, miracles, surrender, obedience, and discipleship, is incomplete.
Church too often rationalizes and overexplains theology and leaves little mystery for people to ponder.It gets people to try to understand Jesus, but the early Christians allowed their heart to be overcome by Him. People need to be encouraged to ponder the glorious presence of the living Jesus.
Reading the Bible as a love letter instead of as a textbook, takes people beyond mental analysis and inspires them. That kind of approach to Jesus stirs the depths of their heart.
Who's there?
Two disciples walked
And talked
With Jesus,
On the way
To Emmaus,
Unaware
That He was there.
And still today,
Many Christians
Live that way.
The Emmaus 5 phases of becoming aware of Jesus
1) Informed unawareness;
2) Awakening awareness;
3) Pursuing more;
4) An aha moment of awareness;
5) Overflowing awareness.
Insights:
Western Christianity seems to be based on informed unawareness, knowing about Jesus but not being aware of His presence.
When something is awakening your heart to the conscious awareness of Jesus, stay with it. Don’t let it fade away.
In a moment of awareness, Jesus suddenly shifts from information to transformation and ongoing saturation with inspiration.
Normal Christianity is to continually overflow with the consciousness awareness of the presence of Jesus. Anything else is subpar.
Informed unawareness of Jesus tends to be boring and legalistic. Overflowing awareness of Him is “joy unspeakable and full of glory.”
Continual, conscious awareness of the One who laid down His life on the Cross will empower you to walk in joy and victory to the mountain top of God’s glory!
Free Gas for Your Think Tank -- Short Reflections, Lasting Encouragement 