LIVE IN RESURRECTION POWER

Being buried in Jesus in baptism is not a one time event that merely serves as yet another marked accomplishment listed on our activity calendars.  To enter into Jesus and Jesus into us is to transform our "personal world" order.  We are to be new...every...day!

The old you strongly wishes to suck the vibrancy out of the new you.  There becomes an actual inner tug o' war over which unit you will choose to reside.  It is not slight; but is a major inward battle for each of us.  The old wants very much to control you as the old you very much needs to control others.  The new, however, finds restoration, and joy, and dependency (upon God and others), and energy, and hope! 

The new you experiences new starts, new beginnings, new life because that's the element of new!

Living in the past is not life.  It contains contamination of indecency that gets all over us and flows from us.  Jesus' blood washes us daily.  We are to be new creatures of new habits that will be new even again tomorrow.

None of this makes sense.  Exactly.  We have a core non-sensical doctrine; namely, Jesus was dead and now lives.  Bizarre to the unbeliever.  Even more breathtaking and wonderfully bizarre to the believer...yet, we believe it happened!  Live in the what can't be...but truly is.

WHEN WE THINK THE PROBLEM ISN'T "ME"

Humanity has a consistent problem due to sin.  Such strain was introduced in the famous Garden of yesteryear.  Awareness of self's lack was immediately replaced by blame toward the other one in the picture. Adam, without question, knew with all of his heart that Eve was the cause of the rip.  This very same "blame strategy" was mine for a very long time.  I had a pretty hard-core rule that need not be questioned: it's always the other person's fault.

In 1999 I came across something in the Bible that caused me to step back for I, simultaneously, came across a painful truth about myself.  I subsequently wrote The Miracle of Mercy.  I'd heard of mercy; but my strong tendency was to be critical of others for "they" knew better...or should.  My core belief was that if "they would" straighten up, then all would be okay.

There was a gigantic flaw in me.  My struggles were not a "they" matter; but were a "me" one.  I was at the center of my stresses, my judgmentalistic traits, and my living in resentment.  It was always another or others that seemed to be why I couldn't move on.  Yet, the study of mercy opened the eyes of my heart to the truth....that it was me who stood in my own way to happiness and productivity.

This study broke me.  God was insistently clear that if I would not forgive others He would not forgive me.  He had handed me to rules to life: if I forgive others, He will forgive me.  If I don't, He won't.  Mercy is miraculous because it remains one of the most gigantic and powerful tools of our time.

I have always struggled with avoiding looking at myself.  It was a much easier route to cast blame...in any direction but my own.  But I learned...a hard lesson...watching Jesus endure, absorb, and pay debts...our debts...my debts. 

This changed my world.  I had not realized how sinful I was.  I thought it was "they"; never "me".  I could blame them and excuse me.  How thoughtlessly defensive I was in order that I could come out looking good.  Since I wasn't good enough, the only course I thought I had was to tear others down.  And...they surely, truthfully had enough wrong about them that such was an easy target.  But when God started getting personal about my sins and my lack/indifference to mercy, the pressure became rather, shall we say, forceful?

Sin is not to be denied.  Salvation isn't either.  If God can forgive mine, then I can forgive others.  He did.  I will.  Sin, to be certain, is strong.  His rescuing Salvation is the stronger.  Believe it.

HEAVEN'S SILENCE

At first glance, the idea of Heaven's Silence could lead one to believe that this is a subject about "not speaking up" when such should have happened....would have been expected.  Yet, the theme is the opposite; that of the necessary silence that was doing the grandest work for humanity.

When Jesus lay in the grave, the Son of God was assumed dead; permanently so.  Hope seemed to have taken a massive blow to the imagination.  There was no voice from the sky.  Mountains and oceans remained intact.  Galaxies did not flail in suffocating disorientation.  All appeared to be silent as if nothing should, could, or would be done with this utmost of all atrocities.  Didn't anything or anyone or The One....care?

Why the silence?  Why?

God had this.  He was calm and the plan--His intention--was not being disrupted in the least.  Rather, it was being fulfilled.  When that Third Day came, society quit holding it's breath.  God, in His glorious silence, was demonstrating for His created humanity, forevermore, to be still, let go, and relax.  He's.  Got.  This.

Of course, during those three days, one could understand the disciples being both a bit edgy and bewildered.  Their understanding of future Kingdom had just encountered the most drastic hit possible.  Heaven's CEO of life was dead, buried, and gone.  Done.  Over.  Say it ain't so!

This is how we get at times, huh?  When conversations don't slant in our favor, when dealings take a right turn rather than a left, or when matters just don't work out, we are tempted to ask, "Where is this God of ours?"  "Why the silence?"  "Doesn't He care?"

The answer for us is the same as it was for James, John, and Peter during their darkest three days.  Heaven's silence contains an astonishing gifted truth.  God is not dead.  Within the harshest of situations, Father is working the course just as He has planned all along.  It is never that He is absent.  It is that our understanding of His empowering rescue is ultra-limited.

Heaven's silence?  It carries that perpetual message from dilemma to next dilemma.  "Be still...and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10).

Heaven's Silence is simply in the process of setting up the grand display.  We set the stage on July 4th by tediously obtaining and arranging unique hope for that awe-packed moment when we light the fuses and the fireworks overwhelm our eyes and hearts.  That's...what God did with the grave of Jesus.  He was setting the stage.

Heaven's Silence was, in reality, enmeshed with incredible intensity of hope.  In perfect timing, God's eternally-intended thrill overwhelmed...all of us!  God lit the fuse to life!  His Silence was most effective, don't you think?

WHY WE SHOULD STUDY ALL OF THE TIME

We perpetually arrive at conclusions; often new ones and sometimes reinforcement of old ones.  Because we are frail humanity, ours is the task of ever gaining information about our indiscoverable creation in which we walk.  By indiscoverable, I mean that regardless of how much we learn, we will never exhaust the planet and solar system of faith Truth.  We are to always be learners.

We religious folks are challenged at this mark.  For research in medicine or in relationships or in science or in history to have ended, we would be a most stunted clan.  Advancement in exercise, in education, to name a couple, is critical to our overall advancement into progressively awaiting reality.

So why would we not think it true of faith as well?  Why stop learning with a defensive shift to protecting what wonder we have already accumulated in holy information?  We will do well to continue the power-thread of godly information toward us for we are to grow in Spirit and in Truth. 

As long as we live, there will be new contours of God's will awaiting implant into our hearts.  That's why we should study all of the time.

GOD IS NOT OUR WAITER

Might we have things at bit backwards at times?  Do we practice prayer sporadically and, when we do, it's the process of us sitting at the table (or pew) and placing our orders?  God, we'd like two days unscrambled so that by 8:00 p.m. we could note that they were over easy.  Too, would you keep others from disturbing us for You know we've got enough troubles of our own.  And, oh yes God, would you see to it that my tomorrow is carefree for I'm in need of a break from those pestering distruptors who seem to cut in line to my having a good day?  Huh, God?  Could ya?  Amen.

When our prayers are laced with the I wants coupled with incredible absent gaps of Thank Yous we are likely approaching God as our Waiter and not our relational Father.  Indeed, He is most interested in our needs and called for us to call on Him.  This thread is true.  Yet, to relate to Him as only one who takes our orders with little relationship misses the point of being His child.

How do I know this?  That's the way I once approached prayer.  I want.  I need.  I'd like.  Why haven't You...?  It took me decades to unlock the mystery of giving God vocal prayerful praise.  And, such a transition changed both my prayer life and my interaction with Him and others. 

Doors opened.  Effectiveness flowed.  His work flourished.  It seemed we finally partnered.

My concern is that when God is merely our Waiter (as was the case with me), that we will be sluggish in prayer while, simultaneously, bugged because He seems to be absent from our needs.  We need Him.  He wants us.  Maybe if we would make a transition from the I wants over to the Thank Yous we would find a Father/child relationship unfolding...that very thing that our inner being hungers for most.

BELIEVE LIKE JESUS BELIEVED

Don't give up.  We have very much work to do.  That thing Jesus did, he wishes to do through us via his Spirit.  We have much believing to do.

Do not be discouraged at those matters which didn't work out...yet.  The close disciples clearly thought that when Jesus died the Kingdom was over.  They didn't have the muster to muster alone.  But they weren't ever to be left alone.  God would move into all of His people the way He had moved into His Son.

There are no mountains too high nor rivers too wide which can shut down the people of faith.  Isn't that the Bible story?  The Bible way?

Don't let anything or anyone pull you down.  Every dark moment is pregnant with aspiring light ready to be birthed at any moment.  That moment arrives when we determine the struggle is a Yes!

Live like you believe He is where you are!

WHEN YOU WANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

I'm not sure this is true.  It may be simply me and what makes me tick.  But I have to wonder about the rest of you as well.  Therefore, I share these thoughts should any of the rest of you feel similarly.

I have one main drive in life.  I want to make a difference.  While I've never wanted to be different (being included in the circle was always paramount to my confidence factor), my heart goes out to those countless numbers of dear individuals who suffer.  Some are ill, others are neglected, others are confused, and yet, others are stumped as to what to do about themselves, others, and life overall.

If it would be a boost to you, allow me to point out that your power resides within your ability to care about God and about others.  Jesus spoke such in his earlier days and the theme remains significantly amazing.  We are not to be the first consideration of our walk; God is and others are.  When this transition from self to Him and others develops, fulfillment immediately follows.  Every.  Time.

Yes, I know a few successful people who are in my world.  My admiration for them grows.  Too, I know a lot of failures who don't yet realize the true wonder of themselves.  Our goal is to inspire the world as the grace of God allows to be within our range.  Great and lonely people need words of hope, of love, of life.  We want to practice issuing those very empowering, inspiring, enriching words.

Nobody is a goner.  No one is doomed to be a useless failure.  What we do is cheer others on day in and day out.  As we plant seeds of cheer, take a good guess as to what we reap?  A harvest of the very thing we had sown.  It is not our job to take care of self first.  No, we are third in line.  God is first.  Others are second.

I know this to be true.  It isn't Rocket Science.  Rather, it is the very thread of Holy Spirit happiness and contentment.  One can have dollars and big business and still be very empty.  God and people fill a void unique to them as they are programmed for our very needy hearts.

Having a rough day?  Tell someone else what they mean to you?  Feeling useless and forgotten?  Be vocal to God about how you admire Him.  Watch your rough day scram.  When you want to make a difference, don't rehearse your wounds; but rather become vocal as to how God and others bless you richly.

WALKING BY CUTTING-EDGE FAITH OR THOUGHTLESS HABITUALISM?

There seems to be no equal to the dynamic and daring activation of believing that something can become when there is no sign, physically at the moment, of such unique possibility.  This is the intrigue of believing into a sphere of darkness; knowing all along that light will become alive in full demonstration.

The fault of religion is its subtle sloppiness of allowing the genuine article of faith to slip into an unconscious practice of nothing more than habitualistic dead performance.  When this happens we tend to give the best grades to the best performers.  Well...on occasion we even offer applause.

I'm guessing that you are much like me; you walk down both rows.  Your inclination, similar to mine, may be more about repetitive ritualism with occasional successful bursts of belief.  If not attentive, we will build churches on nothing less than past tradition coupled with current "I like very much" preferences.

When Jesus hit the scene, community had never seen anything like him; religious or non.  There was something bright, unassuming, daring, and fiercely humble about him.  He lived on mission to not get his way so that others could get theirs.  He died so that nations of individuals could live.

I'll never fathom the full measurement of his glory.  However, I will do my best to conscientiously be alert to the "what can be" of even the most routine situations...and people.  God fits our world; not by fitting in, but by purging the superficial ordinary from it.  He purifies; not by squeaky-cleaning our language and behavior, but by transforming average into sheer wowsville.

Yes, many are committed (and deeply involved) in church(es).  Yet, the call to connect to the driving force of the Spirit is the power connection for each of us.  I know many who know book, chapter, and verse.  That's most valuable.  The ability to transform fear into faith and blockades into entry ways into people's hearts is the real deal.

My guess is that you are much like me.  You will accept intimidation as something that can't be helped.  But I urge you to watch.  Watch for God to do things with you, for you, and through you that you would never have imagined...and then...don't look back....Ephesians 3:20-21.

WHEN YOU BELIEVE THAT DEATH MET ITS MAKER

Every person of every age of every generation of every tribe faces what seem to be two realities; Life...and Death.  But, the truth is there is only one reality for the believer in, of, and with God.  That one reality would be Life.  The other seeming-reality will fade one day and be gone...forever.

The work Jesus did while on earth is the utmost of grand signals that, through him, Death met its maker.  And Death...died.  

Yes, Death suffered a horrible blow when, for three days, it surely sighed in a false glory that it had defeated yet another one in his early thirties who rested in his own grave.  How many millions of times over the years had Death strutted its stuff at such repeated scenes.  How many tears of heartbreak had been shed...oceans of accumulation.

Fortunately, the time came and Jesus got the Word from Father that it was time to break Death's back.  Hanging on the Cross, giving testimony to Father, Jesus entered through Death's front door brave and confident.  He submitted himself in all of his glory so that each of us could experience, personally forevermore, the breaking of the one who had hoped to breathe constant misery upon us all...Death.

It's okay!  Go ahead!  Believe it!  It's true!

O death, where is your victory O death, where is your  sting?  I Cor. 15:55...and verses 56-58 provides the answer.

Death.  Met.  Its.  Maker.

MY HOPES AND FEARS OF EYELID SURGERY TODAY

My upper eyelids have become puffy which is causing significant loss of vision.  I'm soon headed off to surgery for this eye trimmery. 

My surgeon has been given instructions that, since this is basically cosmetic, I would like to come out looking like Brad Pitt.  I'm so often approached by strangers, anyway, asking for my autograph as they believe me to be...him.  I just go along with it as I don't want to disappoint.

That is my hope....that I will come out looking even more like Brad Pitt.

Here is my fear.

What if I awaken from surgery and I don't look like Brad.  What if the doctor makes a mistake and I look exactly like Tom Selleck.  You tell me....what am I going to do with that dilemma?  Uh oh?

WHAT WILL TURN AMERICA BACK TO GOD...SERIOUSLY?

America's spiritual fiber is suffering.  It isn't a matter of the pro or con of church attendance.  Neither is it due to a lack of Bible promoters and quoters.  No, our struggle for relief in this smothering religiosity of ours is that we have failed to find the Truth.

Now...before the religious want to gather 'round that word--Truth--and begin to charge toward all neighbors, might we pause a moment?  Truth isn't just quoting nor is it just knowing scriptures.  It isn't about one being well-versed.  America is full of such dynamics; yet remains quite sluggish in our effectivity to make any impact along the way.

What will seriously turn America back to God?  It isn't what I would have ever assumed in my younger years.  I believe the answer is to be found within an experiential brokenness known as the humility-factor.  Communities have grown cold to our obnoxious strutting of, "We've got life figured out.  Why don't you?"  Of course the bigger problem is, that for many like myself, we glare in our faith rather than shine.

I'm finding that our own good news resides within a zone that I would never have guessed way back when.  Our secret isn't in how much Bible we know, how many converts we gather, nor how many mission trips we take.  No...our impact is buried within the raw fact that we are each the greater sinner of any other neighbor...churched or un.

Consider Romans 7:24, "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?" This apostolic world leader for God and His Kingdom knew a thing or two.  Foremost was his truthful awareness of how much he wasn't.  Paul knew what it was that made himself effectively tick.  He was wretched.  Odd, don't your think?

"WRETCHED: Deeply afflicted, miserable, despicable, dejected, distressed, poor in quality or ability, inferior, contemptible."  Yes!  This rare servant of God was amazing because he fundamentally knew two prominent factors: (1) God is the power and the hope, and (2) Paul was riddled with weakness and unimpressive ability.  Astonishing Truth.

What will turn America back to God...seriously?  When we refrain from parading our withering accomplishments and admit that without the Spirit of Jesus we are sunk, a new Christian attitude of gratitude and thanksgiving will begin to permeate society at large.  We are not the know-it-alls about Truth that many of us wish to promote.

No, we are worthy of God's rejection if it weren't that He practices His own call for mercy and forgiveness.  God's call that we take up our crosses and follow His Son is a far cry from our coming out looking good or getting our own impressive way as we seem to so strongly desire.

SO...WHAT IF WE APPLY OURSELVES TO IMPROVEMENT

Anyone can criticize.  It takes little faith to join the ranks of the harping and habitual complainers.  Yet, what we find most fascination is that, indeed, much improvement it needed in others...and within ourselves.  Jesus has always been keen on each of us removing the beam from our own eye first before assisting the neighbor.

Do things need to change?  Improve?  Advance? 

Most certainly.  Activation is needed; our activation.  Self-evaluation will often lead to the root problem among us.  Are we accusatory?  Self-indulging?  Ignorantly judgmental?  Have we slipped into a form of godliness while denying it's intended power...just as Bible expresses that such will happen?

There's a lot wrong with the church.  At the very same time, there is very much right about it.  One of the latter truths is that we are becoming more confessional about our own personal weakness.  Problems are not a "they" issue.  It is a "we" reduced more pertinently to "me".  Until we hang our hats and our hopes on the literal activity of Jesus in today's experience, we will find ourselves striving without effectivity.

If we could apply ourselves to improvement, progress has a spiritual chance.  Wagging tongues will lose their strength.  Personal evaluation will shut our mouths.  Faith in God will become prominent.  Thanksgiving will flood the community rather than selective gripes.

If we apply ourselves to improvement, others will have more room to be encouraged to do the same.

THE HOPE FOR THOSE SEVERELY FLAWED BY SIN

Jesus isn't just the friend, the therapist, the CEO, neighbor, and the superintendent of people.  He is also the Savior.  This is one gigantic term.  We are all in this lostness together and it is in the Son of God that we can experience our foundness.  Never is it our accomplishment.  Neither is it our social goodness.  No.  Jesus paid a price...one heavy fee...to rescue us from ourselves.

I continually read of those who have or are failing in life.  Too many reference such a category of individuals as "they"; they need, they should, they seem, and they ought.  The accusation may be dead on.  Yet, the frailty of such is that every time that there is a "they", there is also factually a "me" that carries the same fallen nature.

We can't do good life on our own, regardless of strong effort.  We are far too weak to pull it off.  Yet we do try.  When the battle is found to be of our self-effort, we leap immediately into the false zone of living by comparison.  This is always a dead-end alley...so the Word says.

So, know that there is gigantic hope for the severely flawed...and we are all in that mix.  I am the chiefest of failure. Jesus lives to save!  He alone is our hope...but what a solid, true, real, authentic, lasting hope!

BE A BUILDER, NOT A BARKER

Shall we take this tiny portion of a time-slot in which we live and be builders of community and people?  Or, shall we spend our slim amount of days on earth barking in disapproval of the passers-by?  It is a choice, you know.  Much of the negative speaking is merely done so unconsciously that one might hardly catch his or her complaining language.  We seem to believe that we are just who we are and that's all we can do about it.

Yet, I say that one of the blessings of learning from God is that He transforms us into a new sort.  And, within that transformational expanse is the truth that we clean up our language; our negative, bummeristic, sloppy speech that tears down with little effectivity toward building up.  Barking has become an accepted trait of routine living.

In order to become a builder, we will want to subdue our barking inclinations.  But how?  What will help us clean up critical wordage?   Consider the following as a means of helpful improvement:

    1.  Realize our own sins.  The Bible makes this very clear that when we berate another, we are guilty of the very same things ourselves.  Until we get over this, we will merely resent such a statement.  Yet, when we realize that we are all alike, there seems to be a breeze of hope sweep through the room.

People all around us, very ordinary and good people, are in dire trouble due to their own unwise actions.  We do not dismiss such actions.  What we do, however, to keep from barking at them is to realize we are sinful, just as they.  Otherwise, if not true of our own sins, why is Jesus' blood cleansing us day by day?

    2.  Realize the depths of others' struggles.  No one needs our critical glare.  Everyone needs our heartfelt compassion coupled with genuine understanding.  There are, oh so, many who left church long ago because they inwardly determined that they weren't good enough.  Good enough?  Who sitting in church row is?  Not one.

We are drawn to live in a self-absorbed fallen society.  It got so bad years ago that Father sent Son down here on a mission.  It was a bad as had been assumed.  Jesus was executed.  Barking was to have ended because there was no exception as to who was guilty among us.  He died for all.

May we live in such appreciation and thankfulness that our first move each morning and last one each evening is spent calculating just how we my be better builders.  Society needs our voices to do just that.

LIVING THE LIE OF COMPARISON

An inner war takes place within each of us.  For some it is occasional.  Yet for others, it's a nearly a daily grind.  Whether educated or un, employer or ee, or even a Demo-publican, one thing tends to rule every heart...living by comparison.

I'm a champion knower of this curse.  Others...somebody somewhere...are always sharper, smarter, handsomer, richer, and more influential than me.  Oh...how about every person out there?  So what happens to one so insecure?  We tend to live defeated simply by one rule of thumb...judging and comparing self to others.  Whether we judge ourselves better than others or inferior to others, we are always on the wrong track....always.

When God calls for the end to living in comparison, He isn't promoting a selfish ego.  Nothing of the kind.  Rather, He is quickening the gift (His embedded gift) within each of us to arise to a fruitful and productive life.  God empowers and we must not stand in His way nor in our own way by the mistaken lie of comparison.

This goes on day in and day out.  I watch the most aggressive personalities scramble to keep the conversations within the narrow court of their expertise.  The most outgoing of us must note that our tendency to control the topics of our confident zone as the primary focus is a costly mistake.  It is here that we tend to hide so that we may be appear to be well-informed, simultaneously, avoiding advancing in our own understanding.  Could it be that we are failing to learn because we insist that all others must only be about those things which we feel we have some leverage?

I applaud those who are educated in some portion of information who can risk appearing with lack of substance in the many other fields of knowledge.  I thank those many who are terrific in only one dimension of Kingdom life who, simultaneously, live fully aware of their own personal ignorance in a multiplicity of other venues.

What happens when we humble ourselves, open ourselves, to confessing that we are not the expert...even in our unique field of interest?  We let people in.  We let God in.  We discover that we are all alike.  Some are brilliant in one tiny speck of a zone while others are clueless.  And then, when the topic of discussion changes, we seem to advantageously trade places.

Therefore I say to us, as we tend to hide in what we perceive to be some element of our strengths, to drop the appearance that we are sharp.  We are not.  Yes, we know some stuff.  But every person in the room understands valuable details of which the rest of us know nothing...like in No Thing.

When we quietly, inwardly, believe that we are better than another or lesser, we simply don't get it.  Curb the self-elevation or the self-devaluation.  Refrain from living by comparison.  You are awesome.  But remember...so is everyone around you.  If we pool our outstandingnesses without the public veil of arrogance, we will become a society that can advance in drastic and effective measure.

For we are not bold to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves; but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding.
                                                                    II Cor. 10:12

DEFEATING DEFEAT...REALLY!!

The tactic of dark forces against every person alive is to beat us down.  The strain is to convince each of us that our hopes were fake, that our intentions were wobbly, and that our energy was certainly weak.  You...my friend...are targeted with all of the rest of us to hit moments of having your confidence depleted and your ambition sabotadged.

Yet, it is most certainly upon the turf of significant stress and interference that faith carries its "blow trouble of the water" force.  Faith moves mountains; mountains of intimidation and mountains of threat.  We are believers--not in just Bible facts, but--in God (which is a Bible fact).  Be encouraged.  Let your accumulation of Truth be permitted to be confidently acted out in your daring and unfathomable walk.

I cheer you on to unleash the most powerful dynamic from the human system...faith in God.  We believe that what isn't yet can become.  We believe that what appears dead can be revived.  We believe that emptiness can be made full and that darkness can be transformed to light.

The way to whip defeat is to defeat it.  Let's be about this fantastic mission!

(And, yes, I intentionally misspelled sabotaged in the first paragraph just to perplex some readers!)

REFRAIN FROM TRYING TO MAKE FAITH MAKE SENSE

God handed mankind an amazing guide for our journey; the Bible.  It, fortunately, has been consumed by the masses since it's completion.  It's complexity is matched by simplicity.  The foolish mind can grasp it while the intelligent one can't.  God said so.

Now that's sorta weird.  It doesn't mean that our intelligent brothers and sisters can't get it; but they'll never grasp it from anything but the surprising rigors of God's style.  And...His style isn't normal.

This is quite the challenge as we so want to uncover the glories of God's Truth.  He expects us to find them, to know them, to believe them, and even to be them.  The contest for us is magnified by the brilliance of His bent on keeping faith simple.  I, for one, am always challenged by this fundamental reality.  Reading our Bibles is one thing.  Accepting them is yet another because faith is more about believing than it is explanational defining.  

Our call is ever toward humility that He might be permitted to do His thing with, through, and among us.  God has the skill-set.  It is up to us to step aside as He steps in.  


By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance and he went out, not knowing where he was going. (Hebrews 11:8)  This isn't normal, folks.  Yet, it is the thread to faith.  To head out on a journey and not know what the journey is would defy logic...and that's exactly what God does with us.

Faith doesn't make sense.  When we try to arrange it to be such, we dumb down what God planted which was intended to bring love and life to mankind in a/from a Heavenly dimension.  Let Him describe it...

...because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.  For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.  (I Corinthians 1:25-29)

Faith....it will cause one to go out not knowing where he is going.  Furthermore, it will appear to be sheer foolishness.  A problem with today's faith efforts is that we live in perpetual restraint for we don't want to be labeled radical, absurd, nor ridiculous.  The glory of today's faith is that our world is hungry for any who would have the courage to believe what isn't yet; but are certain God's rescue can come!!

DON'T WASTE YOUR LIFE FRETTING OVER NOTHING

There is a great robbery taking place before our very eyes.  It is so easy, quite common really, to be all bent out of shape because someone took our parking place or didn't return a call or, maybe, forgot to pass along a key message.  Oh, how we tend to live in a touchy world of irritation and upset.

I once lived on those streets.  If I wasn't annoyed, I was angry.  And if I wasn't angry, I was injured.  And if I wasn't injured....well I seemed to walk right into yet another crisisistic disturbance...so I thought.  But a heartbreak here and a death there and I began to refrain from fretting over the tedious and the trivial.  I encourage you to do the same.

Here's my day today.  I will try to speak in vagueness for it's the weight that I wish to convey; not names and details.  A childhood friend of mine was to have been incarcerated today in a Federal Prison.  I'm heartbroken for this one and have counselled for weeks long distance.  This dear one is a treasure to me (and to so many) who made an error in judgment and it has cost this one's freedom for awhile.

And then there's another friend who is devastated over a dear relative who has been arrested and is apparently in deep trouble.  This one's heart is so broken that it leaves one hardly able to get one's bearings.  The pain is devastating.  The agony remains with tight grip.  The worry is real.  And the heartbreak causes even the simplest thing like breathing to be most difficult.  Tears are aflood.

These two would give anything right now if their worst worry was that gasoline prices went up a dime or that the clerk overcharged one of them a dollar.  Much of what one frets over would feel like a reward to either of these two if they could only suffer our very minor infractions. 

Do what you can to not waste your life bemoaning what some would count as a true relief.  We can do this...day by day.  Don't sweat the small stuff.  Rather, pray for those who are in over their hearts with the unbearable stresses that really are heavy.

Count.  Your.  Blessings.  And.  Pray.  For.  Others.  Much.  Worse.  Off.

I COULDN'T SEE THE FOREST FOR THE LOGS IN MY OWN EYES

We must be ever on guard against the insistent trait of normalcy that we criticize others with little attention to our own falsehood.  This sensitivity warning was declared by Jesus and admitted by Paul.  We are never better than the next person...every...next...person.

That disposition is not what I held in the beginning days of my ministry.  I was deeply trained in how right my religiosity was.  To find elevation was simple.  All I had to do was note the erring ways of others; especially other groups of Christian name who didn't do (I thought) church right.  But then...Jesus entered my terrain and ruined my delight of living by comparison.

As I watched the Son of God move about each day, he encountered two distinguishable sorts; (1) the broken who needed His strengthening words and touch, and (2) devoted religious leaders who couldn't see the needs of the hurting community because being right (the most scripturally right) was their incessant talk.

I was more of the latter.  And, I was wrong.  I couldn't see the forest for the logs in my own eyes.

The only example I am to anyone is that God can extract the trash of man from Hell's incinerator and transform him into a useful messenger.  Never is the tone to be about how much I've gotten figured out; but, rather is to be about how off-base my conclusions are from what God has desired.  Thus, I have a deep ministry for one main reason.  I understand any who believe that they aren't enough.

Not enough-ism is the story of every person I know.  So...our natural tendency is to strive to overcome via personal elevation of some degree.  The problem with self-improvement is that, every time such markers are placed against the Son of God, we only seem to gain demomentum.  God looms larger and, thus, we shrink into diminishable fractions of who we had hoped to be by now.

ANNOUNCEMENT: This is precisely where God would lead us so that we can develop a daily dependence upon Him.  We must not ever believe we have conquered any turbulence on our own...lest we elevate ourselves as having been the self-source of recovery.  If it is to be...it is up to Him.

VOTE WITH YOUR VOICE

The voice is the creationalistic part of a powerful person.  God created with His and passed the baton to us.  Such an instrument is to be regarded as Sovereign in the Kingdom scheme of reality.

Therefore, may we be a people who speak up regarding hope, emphasizing potential, and anticipating fantastic results.  We have the power to change the family, the community, and the world one word at a time. May we break from this cowering silence of which far too much of mankind is embedded. 

May we learn to use our voices. 

I struggled with this myself.  Believe it or not, at one time in my early stages of serious church life, I did not have the confidence to speak life and hope to others.  I hid in the, "Somebody else could do it better."  Gradually, I learned that every person on earth surely could use a word of confidence and encouragement......As.  In.  Every.  Person.

I urge you to use your voice--not in criticism of the bombarding negative reality around us, but--in order to lift the spirits of dear, wonderful, oft-times hurting, friends and neighbors.  We can all make a difference...a positive one...by lifting our voices tone to be heard clearly that today has remarkably wonderful traits about it...for every person, indeed.

Vote with your voice.  Children and grandchildren are listening in and being trained by your language.