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.
Train yourself to rely On the firm reality And presence of God’s love, Not on pie in the sky. There is no need to try To find an alibi So that you can deny The bad things that you’ve done. Christ knowing all your sin Loved you enough to die So He could nullify All of your guilty shame. Depend on the supply Of God’s unending love. (Romans 5:8)
Every day and every year keep Jesus first in your life. Christians need to gather in the love and the name of Jesus, (Matthew 18:20) not to put their attention on a preacher and his name. (Philippians 2:9)
Preachers who name “ministries” after themselves proclaim the wrong name. No name but Jesus can bring salvation. (Acts 4:12)
Don’t align yourself with a preacher’s name. (1 Corinthians 3:1-4) Listen to and obey the risen Jesus instead. (John 10:27)
When Christians talk, they should glorify the name of the Lord (1 Corinthians 1:31) not a preacher’s name. (Romans 10:13)Everything Christians say and do should be done in the name of Jesus. (Colossians 3:17)
Love is true success. Without love we’re just making noise. Without love success status symbols mean nothing. No matter what we accomplish in life, without love it profits us nothing when we’re dead.
Love is the proof of God’s presence. Nobody has seen God with their physical eyes; but when we tenderly love people in both words and actions, God is living and working in and through us. (1 John 4:12)
True love is supernatural. It comes from God not from us. (1 John 4:10) God is love. People who don’t experience and surrender to God’s deeply moving, genuine love for people, don’t really know who God is. (1 John 4:7-8)
God’s love is everlasting. (Psalm 136:26) It never ends. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:7) Will you let God persistently love people through you?
When I am aware of God’s presence, miraculous love begins to flow from deep within me as rivers of living water. (John 7:38-39) I delight to look around a room of people who are pouring out adoration directly to God. As I see their faces, regardless of their physical appearance, I feel God’s amazing love for them.
When I pray with strangers I meet (regardless of their political views, ethnicity, or behaviors) supernatural love for them comes pouring out of my heart and tears of compassion and concern often run down my cheeks. When I hear about hurting people, I sense some of God’s powerful love for them.
No thing can separate people from God’s love (Romans 8:38-39) yet no one is forced or coerced to receive and embrace His love. God the Father loved the people in this world so much that He sent Jesus, God the Son, that whoever would (John 3:16) abide in Christ’s love (John 15:9-10) by denying themselves, taking up their cross daily, and following Him (Luke 9:23) would have eternal life.
God the Holy Spirit wants to pour His love into your heart. (Romans 5:5) “Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy.” (1 Corinthians 14:1) God continually offers to fill you more and more with His Spirit. (1 John 4:13) Are you eagerly pursuing Him? Be filled with the Spirit! (Ephesians 5:18-20)
I am the happiest when I focus on what makes me happy. I maximize my happiness by focusing on “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Letting Jesus live in and through me makes me extremely happy! Learning to live closer and closer to Him throughout each day thrills me with joy. I highly recommend a lifestyle of loving and surrendering to Jesus.
All your life long, every moment of every day, God has more for you. Will you seek and receive the abundance of love, insight, and discernment that He has for you?
Knowledge alone (without love, insight, and discernment, that create a deep hunger and thirst for righteousness) informs the mind but cannot create a pure and blameless heart. True righteousness and blamelessness are a fruit that is produced by the risen Jesus Christ living in and through a person who is yielded to Him and continually relying on His death, resurrection, and indwelling presence. (Philippians 1:9-11)
Christianity’s not about merely accumulating more and more religious information. It’s about a lifetime of ongoing miraculous inner transformation. Ever increasing intimacy with and surrender to the living Jesus is the way to the very best life has to offer! (Revelation 3:20)
One of my greatest pleasures is spreading kindness and love. I enjoy distracting people from their burdens by helping them to smile and chuckle a bit and to experience some warm heartedness.
I’m a natural introvert, but I’ve discovered that It’s lots of fun to spread warm heartedness. I’ve learned that if I meet and greet people with friendliness, they usually respond with the same. Love shared spreads and grows.
It’s not enough to talk about and to know about love. Everywhere you go experience, enjoy, celebrate, and spread the beauty of love that’s outta this world.
Open your heart to enjoy and share the amazing healing power of God’s love. (1 Corinthians 4:20) Begin to train yourself to sow God’s love and to grow in God’s love until you overflow with God’s love and start to show God’s love everywhere you go. Jesus put it this way: “This is My command: Love each other.” (John 15:17)
“Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:8) Affection and sentiment that fail to endure come short of true love. Settle for nothing less in your thoughts, words, and behaviors than: patience, kindness, gratitude for other people’s blessings, humility, self-denial, freedom from anger, fully forgiving people, refusing to enjoy seeing evil, rejoicing in truth even when it’s uncomfortable, carrying people’s burdens, believing and hoping for the best for people, and demonstrating endurance that never gives up. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)
Embrace the reality of what the Bible says in John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
You can’t eat your way to inner peace. The only way to truly find it is to step out from behind all your disguises.
God sees through all my disguises. He knows who I really am. Yet He loves me anyway. God invites me to continually turn aside from all rebellion and to let the risen Jesus heal me, lead me from within, (Colossians 1:27) and make me whole. What an amazing opportunity He offers all of us humans!
By Christ’s wounds we are offered true healing. “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has on Him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:5-6) God invites us to come out of the darkness of our hiding places and “into His marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9) “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16).
Jesus is all around us. All we need to do is to watch and listen for Him and to open wide our heart to His presence and healing.
There is a very famous man who has personally impacted my life. I wrote the following short poem about him.
When Jesus is neglected Your heart is disconnected From His presence and power — Your thoughts are not corrected By God the Holy Spirit. Your life is not subjected To the will of the Father. When have you last detected Jesus’ presence in your life? Glory to God in the Highest! There’s great peace for those who Let their life be infected And every day directed By the risen Jesus Christ. Are you paying attention?
Jesus is present and active in the world today and brings great joy to all people who choose not to neglect Him. “O taste and see that the Lord is good!”
A blind mind thinks without insight. I try not to do that. I make it my goal to think God’s thoughts. I have found the best book for God’s thoughts is the Bible. It helps me connect with God the Holy Spirit and to think with insight.
It’s vital to love God with your mind, not just with your heart. (Matthew 22:37) To love God with your mind is to affectionally think about Him throughout each day. It is to set your mind on things above, not on earthy things. (Colossians 3:2)
To love God with your mind is to keep His commandments in all that you think. (John 14:15) It is to align your thoughts with God by bringing every thought captive and obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5) It is to think about what God wants you to think about. (Philippians 4:8)
To love God with your mind is to set is to set your mind on the things of the Spirit. (Romans 8:5-6) It is to refuse to be conformed to this world but instead to be transformed by letting God renew your mind so that you can accurately discern what the will of God is. (Romans 12:2) It is to seek, embrace, and obey God’s wisdom not mere human analysis and interpretation. (1 Corinthians 2:4-10)
Throughout my adult life my favorite book has imparted amazing attitudes, skills, and lessons to me. It continues to do so day after day! Give the Bible much more than a passing glance now and then and it will do the same for you!
The Bible is the lense that God has given you to help you keep your eyes fixed on Jesus — to keep you focused on “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Because the writers of the Bible “spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit,” (2 Peter 1:22) if you use it, it will help you stir up the gift of the Holy Spirit inside of you. (2 Timothy 1:6)
Get more from the Bible! The Bible’s not just a textbook to be studied and analyzed. It’s a love letter from God to be continually absorbed, cherished, and treasured. It’s alive and active. (Hebrews 4:12)
To study the Bible is popular and good. However, there are other, often ignored, approaches to the Bible that are vital.
Don’t just have Bible studies. Have Bible searches. Have Bible discussions. Have Bible seekings. Have Bible stir ups. Have Bible doings. Have Bible experiences. Continually search the Bible to verify what you believe about God and what you have been taught and preached about Him. (Acts 17:11)
Discuss the Bible. Talk about it with other people. (Joshua 1:8)
Seek the Bible for revelation, inspiration, and the kingdom (inner government) of God in your life. (Matthew 6:33). Meditate and ponder it day and night. (Joshua 1:8)
Stir up (2 Timothy 1:6) the Bible in your mind and memory. Keep it burning in your heart. (Luke 24:32) so that its words are flowing with the Holy Spirit within you. (John 7:38-39)
Do the Bible. Follow and obey what it clearly states for you to do. Be doers of the word, not hearers only. (James 1:22).
Personally, and directly experience the Bible. As you read it savor it. “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Psalm 34:8)
The glory and splendor of the Lord is all around you. Take the time to notice it. Let your physical eyes observe some of the Creator’s amazing and majestic beauty and engineering in nature and its 2.2 billion species of life that scientist have catalogued so far. (Romans 1:20)
Look up and notice how spectacular the sky and the stars are. (Psalm 19:1-2) Climb a mount and sense God’s glory. Walk a beach and hear the waves praise Him. This incredible world is but His shadow declaring His greatness and magnificence to all who will recognize it.
Open your heart to awe and astonishment. Cultivate ever increasing appreciation for the creative miracles that surround you and the ones that are you — the multitudes of physical marvels that make up your material body and the wondrous mysteries of your consciousness, your conscience, moral compass, your compassion, your mind, your sense of fairness, your desire for justice, your desire for meaning and purpose, your longing to be genuinely loved, your sense of guilt, your disappointment in yourself, your desire for approval, and so many more curious things about you.
A lifetime of “Wows!!!” from a heart dazzled by nonstop amazement cannot do justice to the abounding splendor and creativity of the infinite intricate (visible and invisible) designs of nature! Focusing on the grandeur of all that incredible physical and nonmaterial stuff baffles the brightest minds and will stir the hardest hearts with overwhelming wonderment.
Recently someone pointed out to my wife and me that we both say “Wow!” a lot. I was so encouraged by that. Our goal has been to recognize, celebrate, appreciate, follow, and demonstrate the love and glory of God. Wow! That’s still the burning desire of our heart. We love being wowed by the beautiful things that we see, hear, hear about, and experience, God doing throughout each day.
I try to always keep my heart open to God’s mysteries and to let Him lead me outside of my comfort zone. Doing that fills me with awe and wonder and keeps me astounded by His presence, love, and power. You can do it too!
Open wide your heart to vision and insight. Let it be deeply touched, moved, and led by God the Holy Spirit. Always carry God the Son inside of you; let Him lead you day and night. Worship and glorify God the Father in all you say and do.
There’s a mountain outside my window, but I can’t see it now. It’s covered with clouds, but I know it is there. I’ve seen it many times before. It is one mountain with three peaks. The first time I saw it I was reminded of the mystery of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. When it’s covered by a cloud, I am reminded of the glory cloud that covered Mt. Sinai when God appeared to Moses. There is so much that we humans don’t see that we don’t understand. There is so much more to life than our physical eyes can see.
Keep your heart open to vision and insight. Instead of monitoring the Holy Spirit let God the Holy Spirit monitor and lead you.
Free Gas for Your Think Tank -- Fill Your Mind and Your Heart With Hope 