The slayed Lamb
Standing in the center
Of the throne of God,
Has opened the scroll,
No one could open,
And restored the way
To heart-connection
Between people and God,
Releasing inner rivers
Of living water.
Come and drink.
Taste and see
That God is good.
After spending two hours in the biblical book of 1 John, I was inspired to write these thoughts. Can you tell which verse each one came from?
The Christmas holiday is sentimental. The living Jesus is supernatural.
Christmas can give glimpses of hope but Christ living in you, is “the hope of glory!” The Christmas Baby, “God with us,” is present everyday, as the living Jesus. Millions have had their heart and lifestyle transformed by the One born in Bethlehem.
If you don’t see the events of Jesus’ birth as fiction, they’ll radicalize your life. Christian mystery means that much will not be unwrapped or understood until later. It’s more convenient to acknowledge Christ’s birth than it is to be His disciple. Christ the Lord is risen today (and everyday for almost 2,000 years)!
If you feel no need of a Savior
To rescue you from bondage,
The events of Christ’s birth
Give little hope to your heart.
Christ came to conquer Through love, not force; Humility, not pride; Joy, not anger; Forgiveness, not hate. Go and do likewise. Once you see Majesty in the manger, You can't be passive About Jesus! King Herod with his political power, Said he wanted to worship The new born Christ, But tried to destroy Him. The most ignored Christmas gift: Emmanuel, "God with us." Nothing is stranger Than God in a manger, The living Word As a wordless baby. "Shepherds quake at the sight"-- A baby called "Savior" And "God with us."
God is near to lowliness and far from pride. When humility knocks at your door, it’s the living Jesus trying to connect with you.
Have an awesome celebration of the birth of the living Jesus and enjoy His presence! Here are two quotes for you.
“The Gospel represents Jesus as a real, living, mighty Savior, able to save me now” –Catherine Booth
“Who among us will celebrate Christmas correctly? Whoever finally lays down all power, all honor, all reputation, all vanity, all arrogance, all individualism beside the manger; whoever remains lowly and lets God alone be high; whoever looks at the child in the manger and sees the glory of God precisely in his lowliness.” –Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Regardless of what you’re feeling, Christmas celebrates the most joyous event in history. Look beyond your feelings. Christmas is merry, no matter how you feel!
Christmas customs that distract us from the reality of Jesus are just sentimentality. Sentimentality about Jesus’ birth, can’t compare to the actual perception of His presence.
Christmas declares that our hope depends on no political leader, but on Christ alone! Enhance your Christmas joy. Search: The Joy of Early Christianity book.
Life is happier when it’s appreciated than when it’s analyzed. The human mind can be both analytical and perceptive. We need both aspects.
Too often inspiring thoughts pass thru the brain without getting to the heart. Like your eyes slowly scan a lovely view, let your inner awareness scan for insight. Contemplation watches and waits for inspiring thoughts to emerge from within.
Seeing beyond your opinions, feelings, and analysis, is the beginning of wisdom. Contemplation observes many things that can’t be see with the eyes. Setting aside inner distractions to quietly ponder enables us to receive inspirations. You can learn much by observing (as a spectator) the thoughts and feelings within you.
Analysis finds ways to manipulate. Contemplation finds ways to appreciate. Often heart-felt contemplation can give you better answers than mind-based analysis. Contemplation looks beyond analysis and beholds mystery and wonder. It gazes at hope that the physical eyes cannot see.
By carefully observing your thoughts and emotions you can learn to manage them better. We all need “depth perception,” the ability to observe deeper than physical appearances. Nothing can remove any darkness that’s in you, if you choose to shut out the light.
Since we have thoughts we disagree with, they must come from another source than us. Spiritual discernment helps us distinguish between the thoughts in our mind that originate with us and those from other sources. It’s good to sort thru your thoughts & to decide which ones you need to get rid of.
Contemplation ponders intangible concepts (like beauty) with wonder and awe, instead of with rationality. Trying to find yourself isn’t the pursuit of happiness. Forgetting about self, is. To “find yourself,” you need to discover what’s pulling you away from God’s image. You can discover & remove the viral thoughts that infect your brain with dysfunction.
Be still and let “Christ in you” focus your attention on whatever He wants to show you. The mind can originate thoughts. It can also be used to perceive insights from God. Introspection, focused on self, produces guilt–but on “Christ in you,” glory!
No matter how much we long for them, the future or the past will never be in the present. Here’s the road to joy: Set your inner perception on the living Jesus, instead of on self. An introspective search for Jesus will set you free from introspective analysis. God’s light shines in people’s hearts, yet many don’t recognize it when they see it.
I’ve never been satisfied
With religious information,
But Christ-centered contemplation,
Floods me with inspiration.
Information without wonder is drab. Information that stirs the heart is thrilling!
To contemplate is to ponder with wonder. Contemplation discovers the splendid in the simple. I like to be quiet and let the living Jesus assemble the fragments of my thoughts. Sometimes the faintest thought, on the back burner of the brain, is the voice of God. As the living Jesus tries to lead you from within, you either follow or ignore Him.
Activate your heart to contemplate, meditate, ruminate, wonder and ponder. Christianity without contemplation is a deflated hot air balloon. Listen to Jesus. You can go beyond secondhand (inherited) faith and experience the living Jesus directly. When you humbly contemplate the living Jesus, He will lead your thoughts and feelings.
The Bible is for contemplation, not just for study. Let the words burn in your heart. Ponder the One the Bible calls Emmanuel (God with us). Connection with the living Jesus is within the heart, not in physical surroundings.
The Christian message is more than religious information. It must include lifestyle transformation. Religious information can instruct the mind, but Christ-centered contemplation heals the heart. Ongoing, spiritual contemplation of the living Jesus, is life-transforming.
When I contemplate nature’s nonverbal communication, I hear shouts of praise to God. Through out nature and in the depths of our being, God speaks, even when we won’t hear, yet without inner openness and receptivity to the voice of God, we’ll ignore Him.
Christ-centered, spiritual reading, ignites my connection with the living Jesus. Christ-centered contemplation will end your frustration and overcome your stagnation. Open-hearted contemplation, enables me to recognize and adore Jesus thru out the day.
Religious information and church services are poor substitutes for the living Jesus. The original Christmas events (and other biblical events) deserve our spiritual contemplation, not just our sentimentality.
The current of life is humility. Even pride gets swept away by it. Contemplation requires it. Let your heart be seized by the reality of the living Jesus.
Jesus doesn’t need a religious institution to organize and run His body. He can do it Himself. To confine Jesus to organizations is like confining love to them. Both Jesus and love are matters of the heart, not institutional hierarchies. Humans don’t need to join an organization in order to follow and obey the risen Jesus.
To hear a talk about worship without expressing adoration to Jesus, misses the point. A Sunday program is a poor substitute for passionate, heart-driven adoration of God. Christian teaching “ascribes” glory to God but heart-felt worship actively adores Him.
Worship is to be lost in mind-blowing amazement at the love and reality of Jesus. I love to join with the heavenly hosts in adoration of the living, resurrected Jesus! Life looks different when you’re continually engaged with and in awe of Jesus.
Discipleship is to faithfully obey Jesus. Worship is to express adoration to Him and that fills me with awe and wonder! Expressing adoration directly to God is good for the heart. My heart is healed when the roads I take bring me closer to the living Jesus.
Worship is to allow yourself to be overcome and undone by the presence of Jesus. We can learn to live everyday with our attention and adoration focused on the living Jesus. We were created to worship God. To continually adore Jesus is to fulfil our purpose.
A formalized relationship has little intimacy. The same with formalized worship. Worship isn’t a “service” that’s done for you. It’s heart-felt adoration you give to God. Reading the Bible daily with an open heart, continually calls me to worship God. When we neglect to adore the risen Jesus, something else is on the throne in our life.
To openly and sincerely adore the living Jesus is to soar into unspeakable joy! A heart enraptured in worship understands Jesus much better than the mind can ever do. The more I spend time praising & thanking Jesus, the more His joy fills my heart!
When heart-felt love is expressed to God, worship has occurred. The highest form of worship is the open expression of sincere adoration to Jesus. Any praise that isn’t from the depths of the heart, falls short of genuine worship.
Heaven is about pure, continual, heart-felt worship. Will you be comfortable there?
My favorite Christmas phrase is: “O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.” Those who followed the Christmas Star expressed worship directly to the living Jesus.
Worship is a neglected form of prayer. It is to express adoration directly to God.
Perhaps happiness only seems hard to find. Maybe it’s all around us but we ignore it.
Every time you give your conscience an excuse, it gets weaker from misuse. Some attractions are distractions leading to harmful actions. Follow your conscience. Distractions are mental hijackers. An ignored conscience results in many problems and much guilt.
The purpose of conscience is to warn us of harmful thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. The most ignored warning system in the world is the human conscience. Sometimes people will go to great extremes to avoid facing their conscience.
What you ignore can hurt you. It’s not difficult to become distracted from truth. Continual denial can be disastrous. It’s dangerous to live continually unconscious of your conscience. Be courageous. Ask your conscience, “How can I improve my life?”
Much that is called entertainment is better ignored than absorbed. When I ignore me, I’m happy. I find myself to be most happy and fulfilled when I have a focus beyond myself.
The deliberate avoidance of facts is dangerous. One way people try to soothe their conscience is by ignoring certain facts. To ignore or deny what you know is true, is to intentionally lie to yourself. The most important place for “law & order” is your own mind & emotions.
Conscience is the voice of God warning us of self-destructive danger. The possibility of a God who holds us accountable, is often ignored because of inconvenience. The purpose of our conscience isn’t to sooth our pain, but to avoid even more pain.
Ignore the ugly noise of anger and hate. Focus on showing kindness to everyone.
Ignoring harmful distractions is a skill that can be learned. Find an inspiring focus. A to-do list is fine, but it’s also good to put harmful things on a to-ignore list.
The abbreviation, Xmas deletes the wrong letters. I prefer Christx–exalting the living Jesus! On Christx Day, remember God’s xtreme love in sending Emmanuel (God with us). Christx is a good time to show Jesus’ extravagant love to everyone.
O, the joy of Christx–the exhilaration of a daily relationship with the risen Jesus! Merry Christx. Let’s make it a lifestyle of xtreme love, not the “holiday shopping season.”
Christx is God’s forgiveness. Let the risen Jesus x-out your guilt and set you free. I love to celebrate Christx — to focus on the living Jesus without distractions. Christx: I’ve got Jesus; how could I want more?
Except for the first 2/3s of the name, it seems like the real meaning of Christ*mas was cancelled long ago. La Navidad, The Birth, is the Spanish name for Christmas.
Once Jesus was born in my heart, I could see beyond the traditions of Christmas. If not continually stirred up, faith in Christ fades, like an unattended camp fire.
The biblical events that inspired Christmas cause me to focus on the living Jesus! I love to think Jesus, talk Jesus, listen to Jesus, obey Jesus, worship Jesus — day and night.
Access to religious information cannot compare to direct access to the living Jesus. Christians who deny the living Jesus direct access to their heart, miss the whole point of faith because biblical Christianity is about Christ-access; it’s not a Christ-bypass.
Mud puddles in the human heart make life a mess — but rivers of living water bring joy “unspeakable and full of glory.” The risen Jesus can clean your heart, turning mud puddles into rivers of living water. God’s gift of grace enables us to repent–to walk in stride with God’s will.
Guilt is a wall between us and God. The living Jesus is the door. When searching for God, guilt says access denied, but the living Jesus offers forgiveness and says enter in.
Church gets off track when Spirit-led people are silenced. Religious programs, by design, don’t allow room for the risen Jesus to intervene. In fact, many religious organizations contain systemic Spirit-quenching. Church should invite everyday people to testify about Jesus, not keep them off the platform.
Friendly conversations with people who look/think differently than you are enjoyable. Christ-followers should embrace those types of compassionate conversations.
