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Thursday, December 9, 2021

How will they know if they DO NOT SEE?

 Jesus never said they will know you are my disciples by the number of people that show up in your buildings… Or by the number of books that you sell… Or by the amount of money in your bank account… Or by how fancy a car you drive… Or how big a house you live in… Or how many people adore you and think you’re wonderful and a great orator and a wise and impressive pastor!

No, none of these things were ever mentioned by Christ as being the mark of one of his disciples. His measuring stick was far far beyond the measuring stick of our fleshly and worldly viewpoint. He said the world would know we were his disciples but how we LOVE one another!
How do we love and show that love to one another? 

Perhaps we can all agree to all agree that love is measured by our actions and not our words, so let’s look at it from that point of view and I’m going to speak from my own personal perspective.
When we come in to fellowship with the body of believers and everyone waves and greet us and says hello and hugs us and tells us they love us- that feels good for the moment. But then when they don’t return phone calls, when they don’t want to get together and have lunch, when they don’t want to spend any actual time with you getting to know you it is clear there is no love. When a group forms and then excludes others, there is no love.When things get difficult and you really just need some support and encouragement and prayer, but outside of that one person designated as pastor for the group, no one else has time for you, there is no love!
Love is doing life together; love is including anyone and everyone who wants to be included; Love is following through when you say you were going to do something or be somewhere.
Love is not only encouraging continued growth in your own life and in the lives of others, but love is also making room for that growth, and accommodating that growth when it occurs rather than continue to relate to that person by how they used to be rather than how they are as a new creation in Christ!
1 Corinthians 13 has become so popular as pithy memes and wedding filler. Paul, speaking by the unction of the Holy Spirit, revealed some deep spiritual truth about love that we all need to examine in light of our own hearts and behaviors and ask God to work that incredible true work of love in us and through us, that we might truly example what it is to be a disciple of Christ. Not by how good we are or how much we do or how nice we behave; but by loving according to his standard and showing how good he is, and how much he has done, and how he behaves!
Go to 1 Corinthians chapter 13 and begin to do your own serious word study of each of the words Paul declares love is… And see where you might incorporate that more fully into your walk with Christ, drawing blessing to your self and pouring blessing out on others!!
Consider this; to truly love your neighbor is truly loving yourself and the entire body of Christ!





Saturday, July 11, 2020

Community of Faith



Over the last several months with all that is going on in this world around us, I’ve been studying the letters that Paul and James and John and Jude and Peter sent out to the early believers.

I keep seeing the same themes repeated in each letter. That in the end days there would be scoffers, false teachers, even believers that would follow the deceits and lead others into deceit with them. That the only way to avoid being deceived, was to stay true to the word of God that had been delivered to them.

They did not have printed Bibles.

They only had word-of-mouth. They had no other method of sharing God‘s word except person to person, through conversations one on one and in groups.

Think about how easily false doctrine could be spread, when the only way to spread God‘s word was verbally! And so the writers of each of the letters to all of the churches warned them not to fall prey to false teaching and fully expected they would be able to tell the difference between truth and deceit.

How is it possible that these men of God, giants of the faith, men who had literally walked with Jesus (except Paul and perhaps Jude), expected the believers would be able to discern between truth and lies when (until the letters were delivered!) they didn't have a written record to follow?

The answer is the same for us as it was for them; having been born again and filled with the spirit of the living God, we, like they, would be led by the Spirit into all truth! (John 16:13) We are to try every spirit against what we know to be God’s truth! (1 John 4:1) We are to trust the inner voice of the Lord himself by His Holy Spirit in us to guide us and keep us on the path of truth! (Romans 8:14; Galatians 5:18)

Learning to know and trust the leading of the Spirit unfortunately isn’t taught very well or very often in many of the churches.  We are too often by actions and sermons, led to trust and follow whoever happens to have the microphone and a title without question.

And again too often, even though the Bible tells us not to be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds to God‘s truth, that truth only gets lip service, and is swept away by false doctrine that we need to be “like” the world to “compete” with the world for people’s attention.  (Romans 12:2) Programs and classes and special meetings take the place of God’s word  leaving the idea that in and of itself God's truth and Gift of Salvation is not enough to attract and hold peoples attention.  We must have the latest in creature comforts, technology, music, seating and lighting with deep concern with people's comfort, putting extreme effort into not stepping on or offending opinions while offering the latest upgrade to the ladies room and the latest technology for the youth group.

What is actually being trumpeted is in fact conformity to the world couched in language to make us feel like we’re still doing the work of the Lord. This false doctrine or false ideology goes something like this; “if we behave like the world then the world will come to us and then we will suddenly change from being like the world and have opportunity to teach them about Christ."

However, it seldom if ever works that way!  We get - we ARE - quite comfortable with the worldly way of compromise and soon, it feels right and natural to us so we stay that way.  Before we know it we are defending it by saying "this is the way we've done it for a hundred years!" and no one remembers or cares how it was supposed to be, when Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to guide His church.  Besides, the world has changed, right?  And we need to keep up, right?  Except Jesus is the SAME, yesterday, today and forever.  Which strikes me as saying that if HE, our Head and Lord hasn't changed, why would He want His Body to change???  WHEW!! It gets exhausting, but following Jesus wasn't ever intended to be easy.

Take up your cross to follow me, Jesus told those disciples.  Take up your cross and follow ME, He is telling us today.  (Luke 9:23; consider that Jesus said this PRIOR to His crucifixion!)

And it is HARD!  My past is a MESS of sin and error and I have to LET THAT GO in order to follow Him and it is hard, especially with all the many souls who don't mind reminding me what a mess I was!! And the devil has a lot of fun reminding me and accusing me, too!  I have to forget what was and press on just like Paul had to do in his day. (Philippians 3: 12-21) Just like you have to do if you really want to follow Jesus.

Only by carefully following the precepts Jesus taught his disciples and his disciples taught their disciples and so on and so on, can there be no straying from the path. They were not to follow what some man said, which Paul brought out so clearly when he told them they were not of Apollos, they were not of Paul- they were to be imitators of God as the men of God imitated God himself. (1 Corinthians 1:12; 3:4; 4:6)

Replicating not human behavior or beliefs but replicating spiritual truths taught one on one on one on one.... and the way that they kept each other from going down paths of deception was not by just gathering for a sermon and a few songs occasionally; but by "full sharing" - FELLOWSHIPPING with each other regularly - literally by living in community with one another.

All that brings me to a fine point here.  As I've prayed and contemplated and meditated on the letters the Holy Spirit inspired the early church elders to write to the groups of believers, I am convinced we as the Body of Christ aren't thinking according to the Word of God.  It isn't that we shouldn't be attending church services, NO! Quite the opposite! I am convinced that we are to be more fully, more completely in community with one another on a regular, daily, lifestyle way of life.

Particularly with the signs of the end times we are seeing occur right before our eyes, I find myself in need of daily encouragement in fellowship with likeminded believers.  I find I need to be surrounded more often by those who pray and worship the same God as I do!

I'm even wondering when the "mark" finally happens, how will we eat or meet our needs?  I'm wondering if the time is NOW to make provision as a community?  We know that wolves like to separate a sheep from the herd for easy pickings for their dinner.  I wonder if that concept should be taken further.  I"m wondering if we should be spending more of our lives together, not less!

Maybe the fellowship of believers should be plowing up church lands and planting food against the day we can't purchase it anymore?  Maybe we should be raising chickens, cultivating a community storage system and learning to operate more fully as a family of God instead of individuals who spend an hour on Sunday and another on Wednesday evenings together?

I suppose you might say I'm being extreme, but the Day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, without warning, and the Word of God does say that we are to WATCH and PRAY and be prepared in fellowship with one another. Even if the DAY doesn't come in our lifetime, what perfect preparation for the generations coming after us!  Drawing deeper into a lifestyle of fellowship with God and each other instead of being separate except on "occasion".

That is a HARD concept for the American mind in particular to grasp, with our fierce independent spirit and rugged individualism.  Yet, for myself, the more I study the "early church" the more I see this kind of lifestyle.  The more I consider what is happening in the world around us, the more I think community for a believer should mean so much more than Sunday and Wednesday.

I used to see the words of the scripture concerning the "end times" as something far off into the future.  Now?  I'm not so sure!  Now I wonder if that future is NOW!

1Peter 4:7-11 But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers. 8 And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins.” 9 Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. 10 As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 11 If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Saturday, July 4, 2020



Have you ever wondered why God delivered and rescued one person but left others to “suffer their fate”?

I remember reading about the story of Daniel in the Lions den, first as a child in my Sunday school class and then later with a little greater maturity under my belt. 

In the course of studying history and in particular the history of the Christian church I considered myself part of, I discovered that first century Christians were regularly “thrown to the Lions” in arenas as entertainment. I also learned of many other gruesome and horrific actions taken against and upon the persons of those who professed Christ including being burned alive and even being crucified just as Christ himself had been crucified. 

In meditating upon the word of God and thinking in my deepest soul about what the Bible stories revealed to me about the attributes and character of the God I was aligning myself with, I found myself wondering why Daniel was rescued from the Lions but those later Christians weren’t? 

I wondered why some people were delivered, like Shadrach Meshack and Abednego but not the Christians in Sudan or Nigeria today?


Did God only reach out his hand of power when there was a story to be told? Is it simply a matter of faith or lack of faith? Didn't the Bible teach us that God was not a respecter of persons, but a respecter of conditions? Was it about dedication or lack of dedication on the part of the believer or unbeliever? What about these stories could I discover about God himself and the people of God who believe and trust him? 

This one thought continually highlighted and pressed itself upon my heart; God has an eternal perspective that we in our limited humanity cannot even begin to grasp. 

Then I found myself wondering if that is the answer, is it an acceptable answer? Which actually leads me to a further question! Who am I or any other created being to question the one who created us? 

Which led me to think of Job. When he went through the devastation and the horrific loss along with his wife, of their 10 loved children and everything else in their lives, and he asked God about it, the answer he got is astounding and marvelous all at the same time; 

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world?” God asked back.

And that led me to what I felt was a simple answer. 

I am not God. You are not God. 

We do not know all of the many many mysteries of the universe and of the supernatural and the spirit and of God himself!  We simply don’t know what we don’t know!

Only God knows these mysteries, precisely because he alone is God! And we are left with a simple choice. 

Trust him and receive the many benefits that come from that, even while we suffer the effects of our sinful nature and this sinful fallen world we live in, or don’t trust him and accept the consequences of that choice whatever they may be.

Friday, July 3, 2020


Heavenly father, there is a deep darkness that has spread across the USA, that has been building for many years. You alone can bring calm to the emotional storms. You only can comfort the depth of hurt, despair and discouragement in the hearts of so many! 

Lord I pray you would blow a life giving breath of supernatural peace across our land, into the hearts of those choosing wickedness.  

I ask you Lord to cast down the darkness and bring their wicked plans to nothing. Lord, blow peace and comfort into the hearts of those grieving, those hurt and desperate for understanding!

I hear the word of the Lord calling his people to repentance! 

“Turn to me and seek me with all your heart” declares the Lord God! “There is a recompense coming to the world; watch and pray! Prepare yourselves, for a sword is coming that will devour all that will not bow to the majesty of the Lord God!”

Oh Lord - in Jesus name and for the sake of His sacrifice, sweep across this darkened world with the fresh breath of your healing and delivering, life giving truth! 

Father, hear the cries of your people and deliver us from the pestilence and chaos of the world for your names sake! Amen