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.
Perseverance and faithfulness are rare qualities. It’s easy to quit — to run away — to say that you’ll hang in there some other day. The Bible talks about people who have “a form of godliness” but are “denying the power thereof.” They are still attending a religious meeting now and then but their heart is far from God. (Matthew 15:8) They have basically quit pursuing His presence and seeking His kingdom (His inner government of their life). (Matthew 6:33)
Don’t quit on God. Refuse to exchange an effectual, fervent faith that continually burns in your heart for occasional religious activities. Passively sitting is quitting.
It’s vital to stay Surrendered to God — To yield to Christ’s way Patiently each day And not run away. Discipleship is More than words you say Or the way you pray. It’s persistently Being Spirit led — Refusing to stray. Let Jesus in you Be more than hearsay. Make Him your mainstay! Patiently be Christ’s Faithful protege. (Galatians 5:1)
Jesus said, “Beware of false prophets.” (Matthew 7:15) If you are going to listen to sermons do it safely.
Always search the Scriptures to see if what is being preached aligns with them. When Paul (who wrote much of the New Testament) preached, people responded in two different ways. People in the city of Thessalonica passively listened, however, people in Berea “were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. As a result, many of them believed.” (Acts 17:11-12) Trust the ancient Scriptures, not the shallow lip-cures of modern preachers.
Jesus said: “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: ‘These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship Me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.'” (Matthew 15:7-8) If the words of the Bible aren’t burning in a preacher’s heart, be careful. (Luke 24:32)
2. Always test the spirit of someone who is preaching to you. Here’s how Jesus’ disciple John said to do that: “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.” (1 John 4:1-3) If someone preaches “another Jesus” (Galatians 1:6-9) that doesn’t match the Jesus of the Bible, he or she is (intentionally or unintentionally) a false prophet. Don’t continue to listen to their sermons.
You can also test the spirit of a preacher by looking at his or her character and lifestyle. If a preacher isn’t living according to the Bible and daily demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit watch out. (Galatians 5:22-23) If a preacher isn’t living a life that is being led by and aligned with God the Holy Spirit, beware.
3. Use discernment. “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Psalm 34:8) How does a sermon set with you? How does it “taste”? If something seems off base, that may be God the Holy Spirit warning you to avoid deception. This experience of the Spirit’s warning is a spiritual gift called “discerning of (or distinguishing between) spirits.” (1 Corinthians 12:10)
I admire peace makers in the tradition of Jesus, William Lloyd Garrison, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. who boldly speak the truth as drum majors for justice, yet do so with kindness, compassion, and mercy. (Garrison and King are among my Top 10 Greatest Americans.) Jesus proclaimed, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
It takes rare courage to be a peacemaker. It’s not easy to boldly confront in love, injustice that is disrupting people’s peace and replacing it with cruelty — things like slavery and other forms of human trafficking, unfair laws, authoritarian government, discrimination, racism, violence, war, torture, economic oppression, etc.
Jesus taught and demonstrated a peacemaker lifestyle. He said: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” Even with His dying breath, Jesus asked God to forgive those who crucified Him. However, few people who call themselves Christians actually follow those words from Jesus. I look up to people who do them. To profess those words is easy, but to literally live them out is quite rare. Anyone can make such a verbal profession. I greatly admire the few who apply those words in their daily life.
I believe that loving your enemies is so contrary to human nature that it requires supernatural power. I believe that Jesus offers that kind of mercy and truth power to people. When I see people humbly speaking the truth with love and compassion, I see Christ working supernaturally in and through them (even if they don’t claim to be Christian).
If you have a desire for peace, that’s a gift from God. Open your heart to the desire for inner peace and for relationship peace that turns enemies into friends. The best place to begin peace making is to make peace with God by humbly acknowledging and turning away from your rebellion against Him and receiving the forgiveness, healing, deliverance, and restoration that Jesus purchased for you on the Cross by entering into a life-long personal relationship with Him as your Lord and God.
The most important thing for a relationship with Jesus is one-to-one interaction with Him. Without one-to-one interaction with the living Jesus, going to church is just superficial religion.
Let Jesus give you peace even in the midst of life’s trials, tests, and trauma:
When a trial Lasts a while Keep your dial Set on faith. Every mile Of the way Rely on Jesus and You’ll find rest In your test — Peace from God That even Makes you smile In your trial. (James 1:2-4)
There are many thieves that constantly strive to steal our mental wealth — the riches of inner peace, contentment, satisfaction, joy, appreciation, gratitude, harmonious relationships, and self-control. Most of us humans have never learned to successfully set up a security system to fully protect our inner wealth. Instead, we’ve allowed ourselves to be robbed blind of various aspects of our mental health.
The first step to getting our mental wealth back is to recognize what we have lost. If we don’t know what we’ve lost, we won’t know what we need to get back. Many people proudly say: “I’m good! I’ve not lost any mental health!” But their personality and insecurities say the opposite.
The Bible gives some very practical information about how to safeguard, defend, and secure your mental wealth: “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)
For Christians the real battle isn’t physical. It’s not an external fight. We’re not called to fight against people, political ideologies, or world views. We’re called to an internal fight — within our own heart, mind, and soul. We don’t use human weapons or physical weapons. We use spiritual weapons that have divine power to demolish the internal strongholds and arguments that try to keep us from a growing, surrendered, personal, intimate relationship with the living God. We don’t try to take over a nation’s government. We fight to take captive all the thoughts within us and make them all be obedient to the risen Jesus Christ.
Some powerful but inner weapons are direct, personal revelation from God (listening to His internal voice), surrendering to and obeying His inner presence by doing His will instead of our own, being consistently led by the Spirit, and persistently resisting temptation, the devil, and wrongful (impure) thoughts, desires, and feelings. These mighty weapons are too often ignored.
The rock of direct personal revelation from God is higher than I am! The rock of Spirit-given revelation (1 Corinthians 2:10) brings supernatural light and divine insight. Spirit-spoken words burn in the heart. (Luke 24:32) They enable us to say, “I was blind but now I see.” (John 9:25) Refuse to settle for the pebble of mere human teaching and mental analysis of Scripture. Ask God to give you the giant, life-empowering rock of miracle producing inner revelation. (John 16:15-19)
Words only heard or read Without revelation Are spiritually dead. They’re just thoughts in the head. Being fed mental bread, Alone is not enough. We all need to hear words That are directly said — Spoken within the heart — From the true mouth of God. Learn to be Spirit-led And revelation fed! (1 Corinthians 2:10)
I want to always be awake to and aware of how fortunate I am to have so much that is good in my life. I live in a world full of the beauty of nature, and I have eyes and ears to appreciate it. I live in a body that is incredibly made, and it mostly works well and enables me to do so many wonderful things. I have a mind that I can use to reason and understand so much about the world. I have the ability to interact with, communicate with, and enjoy the presence of other people. I have consciousness — I’m aware that I exist and that a universe exists in addition to me.
I want to keep my consciousness alert so that I can experience the fullness of being alive on planet earth and be continually grateful for my existence. I’m aware that I’m alive. How magnificent is that! And yet it’s very easy to slip into taking my marvelous consciousness for granted.
It’s amazing that a world full of life exists, but it’s far more amazing that human beings are aware of it, can appreciate it, can analyze and understand it, and can even explain it to each other. It’s astonishing that you can look at these marks on a screen and be conscious of the thoughts that I was thinking as I put the marks into a certain order. But that’s happening right now as you read this blog post.
I want to keep my conscious awareness active and focused on things that truly matter. I want to stay focused on “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” — the things that the Bible calls “the fruit of the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:22-23) I want to be consciously “led by the Spirit.” (Romans 8:14) The most important thing for me to carry with me all the time is the awareness that I am in the presence of the risen Jesus Christ. (Matthew 28:20)
I coined a word in my book, “Mindrobics–How to Be Happy For the Rest of Your Life” (in addition to the title). (It’s now out of print.) The word is “worglee.” Worglee is the opposite of worry. To worry is to anticipate, fear, or dread something bad. To worglee is to excitedly and hopefully anticipate and expect something good.
James, in James 1:1-4, tells Christians to “count it all joy” when you face troubles and trials. Now that’s worglee. That’s courageously daring to believe that even through your trials, God is making you “mature and complete.” That is excitedly and hopefully anticipating how God is working all things together for your good. (Romans 8:28)
It’s not easy to worglee, but it’s powerful. Worglee requires that you actively apply the Bible’s self-management methods that can help you renew your mind (Romans 12:2) and bring every thought into obedience to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5) Here are a few:
* Repenting, (Acts 3:19) * Humbling yourself, (Philippians 2:3) * Avoiding and resisting temptation, (1 Corinthians 10:13) * Drawing near to God, (James 4:8) * Being radically honest with other people, yourself, and God. (Ephesians 4:25) * Being led by God the Holy Spirit, (Romans 8:14) * Putting God’s desires above your desires, (Luke 9:23) * Thinking uplifting thoughts, (Philippians 4:8) * Setting your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. (Colossians 3:2) * Confessing your faults to someone, (James 5:16) * Encouraging other people, (1 Thessalonians 5:11) * Devouring the Bible, (Joshua 1:8) * Cultivating an attitude of gratitude. (1 Thessalonians 5:18) * Praying unceasingly with an open heart, (1 Thessalonians 5:17) * Rejoicing in the Lord always, (Philippians 4:4) * Praying in tongues, (Acts 2:4) * Obeying the inner government (kingdom) of God as your first priority, (Matthew 6:33) * Consistently hearing and obeying the inner promptings of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27)
Many people live and act like there is no alternative. They’re stuck in a pattern of dull repetition — each day following the routine of the day before. This is especially true for Sunday religious services. Week after week, year after year, church is basically the same format endlessly repeating itself. However, God has an alternative (although it’s very difficult to find people who are willing to put His alternative into practice).
When Christians meet together to allow and to encourage each person present to literally meet with and obey the inner promptings of God the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 14:26) — to encounter His presence, (James 4:8) to hear His voice, (Revelation 3:22) to say and do what He tells them to, (Romans 8:14) and to worship the Father in Spirit and in truth (John 4:24) — they experience rivers of living water flowing from within them (John 7:38-39) and demonstrations of the Spirit’s power. (1 Corinthians 2:4) Then their faith is built on nothing less than the power of God instead of on the religious routines of human wisdom. (1 Corinthians 2:5) Then they receive supernatural power to be Christ’s witnesses. (Acts 1:8)
Now is the time for Christ-followers to move beyond mere religious motions and sentimental emotions (2 Timothy 3:5) into gathering together to let God the Holy Spirit personally conduct worship gatherings the way a symphony conductor leads and directs his orchestra. My soul is thirsty for that! Where can I go to find people who are willing to meet with the risen Jesus and to actually allow and encourage people to obey the inner nudgings God’s Spirit? (Psalm 42:2) Google: Beyond Church Ekklesia.
The best food and wine are free. “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.” (Isaiah 55:1) “Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good.” (Psalm 34:8) Feed on faith like baseball.
Follow Jesus out to the ball field!
* Going to church is like showing up in the spectator stands at the ballpark. * Opening your heart up to Jesus is like getting up to bat. * Letting Jesus tell you what He wants you to do is like making it to first base. * Beginning to faithfully do what Jesus tells you to do is like being on second base. * Staying focused on hearing and obeying the Lord Jesus throughout each day and night is like making it to third base. * Consistently overflowing with the presence of Jesus (“presencing” Him) and persistently manifesting the fruit of the Spirit — “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” — is to run the bases to home plate.
“Baseball is like church. Many attend, but few understand.” – Leo Ernest Durocher
“If the people don’t wanna come out to the ballpark, nobody’s gonna stop ’em.” – Yogi Berra
“If my uniform doesn’t get dirty, I haven’t done anything in the baseball game.” – Rickey Henderson
“Never allow the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” – Babe Ruth
“Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday’s success or put its failures behind and start over again. That’s the way life is, with a new game every day, and that’s the way baseball is.” – Bullet Bob Feller
I found this in the news. On August 2nd thousands of Costa Ricans come together in one of the country’s most heartfelt traditions — a walk to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels in the city of Cartago. “The Virgin of the Angels” has been the country’s patron saint ever since 1824.
This annual pilgrimage, known as the “Romería” is a national holiday in Costa Rica. It attracts as many as 2 1/2 million people, almost half of the country’s population. They walk from various parts of the country, “fulfilling promises, asking for miracles, or simply giving thanks.” The journey has become a symbol of national unity.
This tradition began in 1635, when Juana Pereira, a young indigenous girl, found a small statue of the Virgin Mary on a rock near a stream in Cartago. Tradition says that every time Juana took the small, dark-skinned virgin and child home, it mysteriously returned to the rock. (The statue is known as “La Negrita” because of its dark complexion.) Ever since then, August 2nd has been a time for church services, prayers, and a collective walk of religious devotion. Many of the pilgrims are seeking healings, miracles, and blessings. For more information click here.
When I learned about this pilgrimage it touched my heart, and I wrote this: May a vibrant faith in the living and risen Jesus Christ arise in the hearts of Costa Ricans and overflow in powerful expressions of faith, gratitude, and hope throughout Costa Rica!
Once that kind of faith arouse in me and it has never faded away. Now every day of my life is a spiritual pilgrimage. However, I’m not walking with a crowd to a particular church to see a statue of Christ’s mother and baby Jesus. I’m journeying within my heart and laying down my desires so that I can surrender my life more and more fully to the resurrected and ever-present Jesus. (Matthew 28:20) I’m seeking to obey what Mother Mary said: “Do whatever He (Jesus) tells you.” (John 2:5)
What you know With your mind Won’t make you grow. Without God’s life It’s just info You remember. When your heart knows That Jesus rose God’s life will rise From within you. (John 7:38-39)
Happiness comes from within. It can’t be found merely in things or circumstances. True happiness has a spiritual component.
Keeping in mind that God the Holy Spirit won’t contradict what He has revealed throughout the Scriptures, (Matthew 22:29) it’s never inappropriate to obey the leading of God the Holy Spirit. It’s inappropriate to let the fear of what people think cause you to quench the inner promptings of the Spirit. Jesus beckons many to give their all to follow Him, but few accept His call. (Matthew 22:14)
Christianity’s about having a never-ending life-changing experience with Jesus. Refuse to settle for less. (Philippians 3:10) A spiritual awakening happens when Christians reduce the amount of their ignoring and quenching the Holy Spirit.
It’s not enough to make Jesus your coach or your copilot. He wants to be your mission control. (Philippians 2:9-11) To overcome the frustrated floundering of our desire-driven, feeling-focused, opinion-obsessed self-direction we need to let the living Jesus be our constant mission control. (Luke 9:23) If the risen Jesus isn’t your command and control, you’re a spacecraft out of control. (Isaiah 53:6)
Christianity is like space flight. To be successful astronauts must surrender their feelings, desires, and opinions to mission control. You can’t live for Jesus if you’re unwilling to allow Him to command and control your daily life as your living Lord and Master. (John 20:28) True discipleship is to live your life under Christ’s command and control. (Luke 14:27)
You’ll never be whole till Christ is your mission control. (John 15:5) If Jesus isn’t your mission control, you’ve got a problem. You’re quenching God the Holy Spirit. (Ephesians 4:30) Learn to hear Jesus in your thoughts. (John 10:27) Let Him lead you from within. (Romans 8:14)
The world needs more people who are eternally energized and empowered by the risen Jesus Christ. Will you be one? (Colossians 1:27) Gene Kranz, legendary NASA Flight Director, said: “Spaceflight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect.” Christians also should settle for nothing less than total commitment to persistently follow and obey the risen Christ.
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