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.
If feelings, desires, and opinions are running your life and defining your identity, then you aren’t the one in control of your life. Freedom is power over feelings, desires, and opinions, not surrender to them.
Compulsive feelings and desires can lead in two directions: 1) to arrogance if we justify them, or 2) to humility if we persistently resist them.
As humans we experience false feelings, tormenting thoughts and defective desires. Learning to recognize and overcome them is powerful.
To only believe what pleases you is to walk in deception. Truth is often unpleasant.
Learning without application Is dilapidation. It may look smart But life’s still falling apart.
To avoid guilt: Keep your sight On what is right And don’t go along With what is wrong.
The prayer cycle: Without prayer life’s a mess. When life’s a mess People eventually pray.
Your prayer-do is much more important than your hairdo. How you communicate with God and what you do with your life matters, but your hairstyle will make little difference in your quality of life. (Many happy people have bad hair.) A beautician can fix your life, but sincere prayer lets God fix your life.
Some people say that it doesn’t make sense to pray. For me, life doesn’t make much sense without prayer.
True prayer doesn’t wear an inner mask when approaching God. It doesn’t heart distance from Him.
When people say they can’t hear God, what they usually mean is that God isn’t telling them what they want to hear.The testimonies of God can be seen in nature, but His voice is heard deep inside your heart. When God begins to talk to you, listen. Don’t interrupt Him.
Prayer requires humility. True prayer is the acknowledgement that we need God.
Heart-felt prayer isn’t like talking to yourself or to an imaginary friend. There’s a real connection when you talk to God. Try a sincere, honest conversation with God and notice what happens in your heart.
To ignore your conscience is to walk away and not hear what God has to say. Let Him talk to you. If you don’t want to communicate with God, He won’t make you pray.
True prayer involves getting and keeping your mind, heart, and life right with God. You don’t need to go anywhere (or attend a church service) to communicate with God in prayer.
The ultimate purpose of prayer isn’t for us to command God, but for us to allow God to lead us into His will. Prayer that doesn’t connect your heart with God is incomplete.
When we make communication with God all about making requests, we miss out on hearing His voice and celebrating His presence. It’s hard to pray if you’re trying to avoid God’s presence.
When your soul is hungry for God, honest, open-hearted prayer is more fulfilling than study.If you’re offline with God, heart-felt prayer will reboot your spiritual wifi.It’s a probable deception to think you have a relationship with God if you rarely (or never) interact or communicate with Him.
When I pray the words don’t come from my mind or my will, but they freely flow from somewhere deep within me. Dare to pray. Begin to say one for somebody. Then notice what happens in your heart.
If your enemies are as wrong as you think they are, they really need your prayers.If you don’t believe in miracles, but ask God for one anyway, you’ll be tempted to try to explain it away.
Hearing a sermon or having a discussion about Jesus, can’t compare with listening to and obeying Him.Hearing a sermon can be an obstacle to obeying God. It gives you the impression that you’re already doing it by merely attending church.
Prayer is called spiritual warfare, because it’s hard to make our human nature surrender to God. It takes spiritual warfare to defeat ungodly, thoughts, feelings, and desires. We can’t follow Jesus and our own thoughts, feelings, and desires at the same time.
People who have been forgiven by God know how to forgive others. They’ve learned to let go of bitterness and and brush away all hate.
Prayer can get stuck In rattling off words Without feeling. Instead, express your heart.
The USA has dropped the mask mandate. Now we need churches to drop their mask mandate and let people openly share from their heart. It’s time for Christians to be real before God and one another.When you learn to honestly express to God, the tenderness in your heart, you’ll be free to express it to people as well — with an unmaksed heart.
Americans will call, write, or petition their representative in Congress, but I find God to be much more reliable. When you think God isn’t hearing, He is. But you might not be.
Many Christians have been trained to hear sermons without commenting and to talk to God without listening to His inner voice.However, those who listen to and obey the living God are Spirit-led and live by love. The Bible calls them “the children of God.” Romans 8:14.
People who pray together (from their heart) experience an inner connection with God, together.To pray with your mouth open and your heart closed, falls far short of true prayer. Open the eyes and ears of your heart.
The 2 halves of prayer are: 1) expressing yourself to God; and 2) is listening within as God expresses Himself to you.Just because it’s free, doesn’t mean that communicating with God is less powerful than talking to a paid therapist or counselor.The Bible says that we should ask God for wisdom. Pray that He will teach you. Then listen to His inner voice in your conscience.
Knees bent in prayer don’t necessarily mean a heart bent toward God. True prayer is spiritual warfare. It’s intense, focused, compassionate, urgent, heart-felt, and life-changing. Say one for someone.
Formal prayer is constrained and regimented. Free-flowing prayer is spontaneous, heart-felt, and life-changing!
See how well God organized nature. Yet many Christians believe He can’t organize a church service without a pastor to lead it.
If you want God To be your first responder, Don’t make prayer Your last resort.
When you say your prayers, open your heart and share your cares with God.As humans we have selective inner hearing. We can open or close the ears of our heart to God.Pray with the ears of your heart open and hear what God has to say.
God’s voice is often called conscience. Life goes better when you tune your heart to hear Him.
Heart-prayer is to hunger and thirst for a growing relationship with God. That’s how we can “pray without ceasing.”Make your prayers an expression of heart-felt gratitude, not just a religious platitude.
Christianity isn’t a once and done — an “I got saved,” checkbox. It’s lifelong surrender to and pursuit of the living Jesus.
Consistently pray for God to bless your enemies. They may never know it, but it will cause bitterness to drain from your heart.
Prayer walking is powerful. When I pray while walking around with my eyes open, I discover that “He walks with me and He talks with me.”
People who say they don’t believe in prayer will sometimes turn to it as a last resort. Without sincerity, prayer won’t bring serenity.
Life is full of mirages. The way things seem to your senses isn’t always the way they really are. Our consciousness contains both illusion and truth. It’s important to separate the two.
Be attentive to your inner self. You can greatly improve your life by observing your thoughts and feelings and working to improve them
The most ignored human right is the right to restrain and control your own impulses, desires, thoughts, and feelings.You have the ability to choose to either accept or resist any thought or feeling that comes to your awareness.
What you know about Jesus thru direct personal experience is infinitely more powerful than what you’ve learned by hearsay or sermons.Jesus gives us His path to follow everyday, not a classroom style lecture to attend once a week.
Inner Christianity isn’t based on outward form, but on obeying the living Jesus within.Going to church, without the inner life and inward illumination of Christ living in you, misses the point. You get to know the living Jesus by inviting & observing His activity within you.
Jesus wants to awaken and restore God’s image inside of you, thru new birth and the lifelong process of becoming Christ-like. To know the Bible by living it is far more important than to merely read or study it.
To repent is to align your heart and life with your conscience and the inner government of God.Thinking we’re Christian because it’s our intention to be, is deception if we choose to leave our behavior unaligned with Jesus.
Grace changes a person from the inside out and begins to transform his thoughts, feelings, and actions to conform to those of Jesus.Theology, if not confirmed by personal experience, has little impact on how people live.
Sincerely ask God to bring alive the reality of Jesus in your personal experience. Then fasten your spiritual seat belt.You can daily live in the kingdom of God, because King Jesus is present among us and wants to live inside of and direct you 24/7/365.
UNMASKING HISTORY
Freedom of speech
Doesn't put a muzzle on history,
But lets it tell the whole story.
Masked history
Has led to deception
By canceling the reception
Of uncomfortable details
And by claiming that racial cruelty
Was an exception
Rather than the norm.
FREEDOM RIDERS
Black & white heroes
Together boarded buses
To go to places
That said no
To uniting the races.
They showed love
Even though
They were met with hate
And were resisted with violence.LUNCH COUNTER SIT-INS
White only
Was too lonely,
Rejecting the rest
Of the human race,
So heroic blacks
And some of their supporters,
Sat down for lunch
And were quickly
Refused service, harassed,
Abused, insulted,
Burned with cigarettes
And punched
By the other customers,
Yet they remained
Nonviolent & peaceful.BLACK VOTER REGISTRATION
Poll tax, literacy requirements,
Jim Crow laws, & violence,
Kept almost all blacks
Off the voter rolls
In the South
Until the 1960s
When men and women
Courageously went county to county,
Risking their lives by
Registering blacks to vote.
They were abused and beaten.
Some were murdered by hate groups.
More than a thousand of them
Were arrested by law enforcement
For simply trying to register people to vote.ANTI-LYNCHING MOVEMENT
Between the 1880s and the 1960s,
More than 4,200 Americans
Were lynched.
Some courageous blacks
And a few of their supporters
Spoke out against it,
Yet the horror & evil of lynching
Never sparked a national outrage.
From the 1930's
Congress tried more than 200 times
To pass an anti-lynching law
But refused every time.
Finally in 2,000
They made lynching
A federal crime.CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Millions of Americans
Were denied their
Constitutional rights
By illegal laws
And hate groups.
Many said enough
And began to march.
Community hate
Couldn't stop them.
Even law enforcement
With billy clubs,
Dogs and fire hoses,
Were no match
For those nonviolent heroes.For more unmaksed history, check out: Off the RACE Track--From Color-Blind to Color-Kind.
Invisible kingdoms compete for your allegiance: A) The kingdom of self; B) The kingdom of darkness; and C) The kingdom of God.The kingdom of God manifests when people obey the living Jesus instead of their own feelings, dearies, or opinions.
The kingdom of God is what God wants — not what we want. Too many Christians want to create their own kingdom. They want to be independent of the kingdom of God.
Tune in to Christ in you. Jesus will tell you What to do.
When and where do you manifest the kingdom of God?How much territory does God control inside your heart? To that degree, you’re in the kingdom of God.
“Seek first the kingdom of God.”Jesus taught the primacy of God’s invisible government over all other governments and authorities.
“The kingdom of God is at hand.” You can become a patriot of God’s government now, by continually listening to and obeying the living Jesus.The kingdom of God (bringing your heart into full surrender and obedience to the living Jesus) is a lifetime pursuit.
The kingdom of God is wherever God’s will is done while human will and temptations of evil are laid down.God’s kingdom isn’t established by human organizations, but by human surrender — individuals patriotically laying down their will for His.
Wrongful thoughts, words, and actions are treasonous. They involve active rebellion against the kingdom of God.The kingdom of God is a condition of the heart–vulnerability, humility, surrender, brokenness, and passion to obey the risen Jesus.
The kingdom of God isn’t an organization. It’s organic and grows like a seed in humble, surrendered, obedient human hearts.The kingdom of God isn’t found by earthly power or human systems, but by radical surrender to the risen Jesus.
The kingdom of God is the manifestation of God’s inner transformation. It liberates us from bondage to self. It’s the freedom to follow Jesus.
Christianity isn’t about the grace to understand God. It’s about the grace to obey God! Grace freely opens the door to the kingdom of God. Obedience enters it.
America teaches “the pursuit of happiness,.” Jesus taught “the pursuit of the kingdom of God and His right living.” -Matthew 6:33. Jesus proclaimed “the kingdom of God,” but today’s Christianity focuses on church.The government of God isn’t about sermons, churches, or religious events. It’s about daily listening to and obeying the risen Jesus
Christian spiritual formation Requires inner transformation, Not just biblical information.
Learning doctrine in our head, we can still be spiritually dead. We need to let God’s fire continually burn in our heart!
Christians can be taught by Jesus — instructed directly by the Good Shepherd whose sheep hear His voice.When you allow Jesus to lead you from the inside out, it’s glorious. (“Christ in you, the hope of glory.)
Too often Christians only learn info about God rather than being directly led by His Spirit.To be “led by the Spirit,” you have to learn to listen to the Spirit, not just to preachers.
A self-justified heart frequently pats itself on the back. Then it allows pride to keep it away from intimacy with God.
Preachers disagree. I need Jesus, The living Word, To teach me.
Exuberance isn’t an extraordinary expression of Christianity. It’s the biblical norm for following Jesus.
Tidy Christianity tends to quench the Holy Spirit. Christianity in the Bible isn’t organized, formalized, or intellectualized.
You don’t work up genuine love for Jesus. When you’re aware of His presence, it spontaneously flows from within.Unfortunately, many people have allowed their inner acoustics to deteriorate until they have difficulty hearing the voice of God.
Don’t settle for less. When the living Jesus causes inner exuberance to erupt like a geyser from within you, you’ll know it! It will also be obvious to those who know you.
Happiness isn’t obsession with self. It’s freedom from self-focus.Like a rope, your emotions can either tie you up, or lift you up. It all depends on how you respond to them. People who aren’t ruled by their desires are inner heroes of freedom and self-control.
Joyless Christianity isn’t biblical. The living Jesus and my ego seldom go in the same direction.When I focus on the living Jesus, I overflow with enjoyment. The Bible calls that: “joy unspeakable and full of glory.” The risen Jesus continually fills me with spontaneous liveliness and joyful enthusiasm.
If you don’t have inner peace, you’re allowing something tormenting to trespass inside you where it doesn’t belong.When God’s light enters a human heart, the hardness of the heart begins to soften, unless the person turns away to darkness.
Without discernment, the willingness to recognize the difference between divine and demonic thoughts, life is a mess.
Photo by Monstera on Pexels.com — Jesus makes you want to dance for joy!
B) The kingdom of darkness; and C) The kingdom of God. The kingdom of God manifests when people obey the living Jesus instead of their own feelings, dearies, or opinions.
