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.
For me, every day should be a day of discipleship! What does that mean?
The way Christians “make disciples” has changed drastically from the first century. Today Christians rarely even used the word disciple. Instead, they sit in rows, passively hear a weekly lecture, and then go home to the same ole lifestyle while believing that they’ve just experienced New Testament Christianity.
Discipleship is the ongoing activity of passionately pursuing, focusing on, interacting with, and obeying the risen Jesus. It’s an unearned privilege made available by the grace of God through Jesus’ sacrificial death on the Cross. True Christianity never fails, but it is often abandoned and replaced with routine religion.
Discipleship isn’t just hearing a message. It’s being a messenger who testifies to and personally demonstrates the new life in Christ throughout each day.
True discipleship is much more than routine religion. It’s rich revelation that ever burns in your heart and demonstrates itself through your attitude, words, and behavior.
Biblical discipleship freely flows with God’s supernatural inner flow of rivers of living water as Christ-followers gather to all be led by the Spirit. (See 1 Corinthians 14:26.) It doesn’t shut down the Spirit’s inner flow with a programmed religious show. It trains people to continually listen to and obey the Spirit, not just to sit for a religious talk. (Search for: The Joy of Early Christianity book.)
Real discipleship Isn’t being spoon fed By a weekly message. It’s being Spirit-led By Christ alive in you.
In the Old Testament, Eve listened to the snake in the Garden. When she obeyed it and she and Adam ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, their lives were separated from God. They died spiritually and were separated from the Tree of Life.
In the New Testament, Paul shook the poisonous snake that bit him and hung from his hand into the fire. The strangers who saw it immediately partook of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They took the bad man/good man approach. They said: “This man must be a murderer,” and they expected Paul to drop dead. Then after waiting for his sudden death, but seeing nothing happen, they finally switched their opinion and said that Paul was a god.
Paul shook off the snake and miraculously lived. He experienced and demonstrated the Tree of Life — a life-saving miracle from the living God. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. It’s time for Christians to shake off the snake of evaluating people as good or bad, right or wrong, left or right, and instead begin to demonstrate the miraculous life of “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” and His love and grace for all human beings.
People want Christianity to be about a thing — church attendance, a sermon, a ministry, a preacher, tithing, a religious routine, a doctrine, a conference — but it’s not. It’s about a relationship of ongoing surrender and obedience to the risen Jesus. Biblical Christianity is about continually demonstrating Christ’s presence, power, and love to all the people you encounter. Shake off the snakes that want you to evaluate people by good or bad and instead love them with the life and presence of Christ living and reigning in and through your heart.
Now hear the here God. Let His inner voice motivate you. He’s always here. God’s the ultimate Speaker! He spoke everything into existence.
Hear the near God say: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him!” Hear Jesus the God-Man.
Jesus uses words because He is the Word. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Hear the living Word say: “My sheep hear My voice,” and “I am with you always.”
The risen Jesus is talking to you. Notice the sound of His still small voice. Wake up from your daze. Tune into Jesus — the living, eternal Waze.
Let your heart be Christ’s moment by moment sanctuary. Listen to what God’s Spirit is saying in your inner ear. Hear Him call you by name over and over again. Let the awe-filled hush of His pure and holy voice reveal His way and ever lead and direct you from within — wherever you are and wherever He tells you to go.
Hear the word of the Lord in what God told the prophets and the other writers of the Bible. Continually ponder Scriptures. Write them on your heart. Savor them like a love letter to you from God, until they burn as an inner fire and flood you with His presence. “O taste and see that the Lord is good.”
I like writing to try to encourage people to search for and find “the honest truth.” I’ve always believed in fairness (even when it goes against my own opinions, feelings, and desires). Fairness seems in short supply today, replaced by unsubstantiated accusations and propaganda. I like trying to cut through (and encouraging other people to cut through) deception and denial.
It’s important to be honest and fair. Being one-sided in what you say is to abandon fairness. If you can’t prove it with undeniable evidence or you haven’t experienced it yourself, it’s best not to say it.
The nature of “propaganda” is one-sidedness. That’s all I see in most political posts — blind praise of one candidate and blind accusations of the other. All humans have liabilities and faults. It’s not fair to point out those of one candidate and to ignore those of the other. It’s even worse when candidates and their followers distort the truth and/or falsely accuse each other.
If you want To be correct You can’t neglect To fact check. False words will wreck People’s respect For your integrity. Choose to collect Truth instead of Blind accusations. If you overlook Or distort the truth You will infect Other people And your own heart With deception.
Blind speculations Lead to miscalculations, False accusations, And cruel allegations.
It’s hard to admit truth that you don’t want to hear. Lord, help me to live by truth, not by my unproven opinions, feelings, and desires. We live in the age of deniers: * Global warming deniers. * Prenatal-life deniers. * Election deniers. * Gender deniers. * Guilt deniers. * Insecurity deniers. * History deniers. * Moral accountability deniers. * Love deniers. * Pandemic deniers. * Civility deniers.
Geography Can’t set you free. Where you live Cannot give Your heart the peace That you long for. No geographical cure Can make you pure. Only Christ in you Can do that.
Christianity isn’t something that a pastor, priest, or preacher does for you. It’s what you let God’s Spirit do in and thru you.
Counterfeit Christianity is confusing. It substitutes routine religion for the rigorous reality of “Christ in you.” That inner reality of the living Jesus was so strong in the earliest believers that the pagans in Antioch began to call them Christians (Christ-followers/demonstrations of Christ). See Acts 11:26 and 1 Corinthians 2:3.
Today’s Christ-followers don’t need to abandon the biblical term, Christian. We need to demonstrate the reality of that term by letting the risen Jesus literally transform us into His glorious image so that all the world can clearly see Christ living in us and demonstrating His presence and reality through our attitude, behavior, and words!
Testimonies about how people met and were transformed by the risen Jesus are powerful! They clearly demonstrate Christ’s presence and reality in today’s world. It’s sad that churches today neglect to train, empower, and encourage people to testify on Sunday mornings and throughout the week.
O Taste & Savor the Flavor of God’s Favor
Seek God’s government first! Let Him replace Everything in your heart That wants to take His place. Keep your think tank Filled with His righteousness. Transcend your loneliness Through His inner presence. Savor the flavor of Christ’s favor. Let your heart soar On the wind of His Spirit.
I don’t like religious table blessings, but I love the positive emotion of gratitude! Here’s why.
I seldom pray out loud before I eat. Why? When I pray, I want to pray with all my heart. When I am praying while food is waiting to be eaten, people don’t want me to pray passionately. I feel great pressure to disobey Scripture and quench the Spirit (who I feel stirring up my heart) so that the food doesn’t cool off and so that people don’t get irritated with me for a long, fired-up prayer.
Having been an ordained traditional (Presbyterian & non-denominational) pastor for several years, family members and friends would call on me to “say the blessing.” I’ve prayed a few long, heart-felt ones, but after a while I learned to cut it short (quench the Spirit) and make it simple and sweet. It’s easy for a table blessing to become a religious quicky. Maybe other people don’t feel stirred up to pray intensely before a meal, but I do, so rather than do a half-way prayer, I tend to pass. (By the way, I don’t know of a Bible verse that tells us to pray out loud before all our meals.)
Occasionally I feel prompted by the Spirit to say a blessing. When that happens, I am raring to go. (I’m speaking from my own experience, not intending to put this on others. Short prayers can be sincere; however, they usually stir me up to want to pray more and longer!)
Sometimes the Spirit leads us to pray short prayers and sometimes to pray long ones. Usually when I start talking to God from my heart, an inner flow rises up from deep within me. When I’m at the dinner table with other people I feel compelled to stop that flow so that I don’t get them irritated with me. In that case, I usually give in to the fear of man and follow religious tradition rather than what God’s Spirit is releasing in and through my heart.
Casual Christianity is counterfeit Christianity. Christ-followers are called to so much more than comfortable religious routine.Eyesight without insight and foresight dims your inner light with oversights and blind spots that keep glorious, tangible hope out of sight.
Holy moly, what a goalie! The most amazing goals transcend our own planning. They arise from within us and lead us forward with a burning desire to fulfill their deep sense of purpose, service, and high calling. They are gifts of inner vision that we don’t plan for but which we can receive, embrace, and pursue.
The leading of the Holy Spirit isn’t found in the subjective inaccuracy of your thoughts, feelings, desires, and opinions. The leading of the Spirit is the inner manifestation of the reality of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” It occurs when a person inwardly hears, discerns, and follows the direct objective communication of the living God — His “still, small voice” — the witness of the Spirit that aligns with Christ’s love, mercy, His call to repentance, and His forgiveness. The leading of the Spirit produces visible objective fruit in a person’s life: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Many people go to church every week and yet have no idea what it means to be daily led and directed by God’s Spirit.)
The name that Christians should say more than any other name is the name of Jesus! The names people shout out today will be forgotten in a few years, but the name of Jesus is forever! Jesus is the best emergency preparedness plan!
The Humble Place of Pure Dependence on God
Good times or bad, Rely on God. Happy or sad, Be still and know That He is good. Jesus is the way. Everyday Train yourself To trust and obey His presence. No matter the test Let your faith Continually rest In nothing less Than the reality Of Jesus’ blood And righteousness. Always cultivate The humble Inner confidence Of pure dependence On “Christ in you, The hope of glory.”
If you’re oblivious to how Jesus is working and communicating inside you, you’re overlooking life’s most amazing experiences. If the risen Jesus has become real to you, it’s important that you open your heart and use words to tell people how that happened. The word of our testimony is a mighty spiritual weapon that Jesus has given to all of His followers. We need to use that awe-inspiring weapon much more often than we do. It is time that Christ-followers stop criticizing others and instead begin to witness to the glorious things that the risen Jesus has done (and is doing) in our individual life.
I was an agnostic, and a Christian kept inviting me to an informal gathering of believers on my college campus. I finally went and I heard two different guys each give a short (2 or 3 minute) version of his salvation testimony. As they opened their heart and shared, something amazing happened deep within me. Like switching a switch, the Jesus I didn’t believe in became real to me, more real than my physical environment. Ever since that moment, through all my ups and downs, I’ve been continually aware of and blessed by His presence, His love, and His reality.
I’ve discovered that true confidence flows from a heart that stays open and surrendered to God. A heart that doesn’t stay open to God become callous. It hardens and shuts out God’s deep inner probing, prompting, and testing. It refuses to fully hear, obey, and be led by the inner witness of God’s Spirit. Like the heart of Saul of Tarsus, it kicks against the pricks.
When an emergency occurs the time to get prepared has already passed. Cultivate an intimate relationship with the living Jesus long before the rough waters hit your shore. If you fail to prepare the way of the Lord in your heart, you’re preparing your heart to fail when the ways of this world crush it. Make your heart a never-ending hospitality zone for the risen Lord Jesus and all of His followers.
Christ is ready to be your friend if your heart and mind be so. When the risen Jesus prompts you to say or do something be ready to promptly obey. The prepared heart frequently encounters the risen Jesus.
How desperately this world needs to see and hear from Christ-followers who go beyond routine religion and daily demonstrate the reality of being led by the Spirit! Western culture greatly needs an eternal emergency preparedness plan. When a culture considers the killing of prenatal infants to be a right, something is dreadfully wrong. Prenatal or postnatal, the killing of infants is infanticide. The risen Jesus is the only essential emergency preparedness plan.
“I’m a good person.” “Good choice.” “They’re good people.” “Good day.” “It’s good.” “I’m good.” “Good job.” “Be good.” “Good call.” “You’re a good person.” “Good for you.” “Good shot.” “Good boy.” “Good girl.” “He’s a good guy.” “Good move.” “Good idea.” “Good for nothing.” “Good buy.”
The truth is that we humans aren’t very good at discerning the difference between good and bad. We misjudge the thoughts, desires, feelings, opinions, and behaviors of other people and even our own. Our knowledge of good and evil is frequently misguided. We think bad is good and good is bad.
The Bible describes a time when people had abandoned God’s moral standards and “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25.) That’s the first sin that is described in account of the Garden of Eden when humans turned away from God’s presence, guidance, and wisdom, which is described as the Tree of Life, and replaced it with their own thoughts, desires, feelings, and opinions by partaking of and embracing what is described as the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
I listed various aspects of the Tree of Life in yesterday’s post. Now I’ll list various aspects of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Which tree do you partake of most frequently?
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil consists of things like these:
Free Gas for Your Think Tank -- Short Reflections, Lasting Encouragement 