Category: Book Reviews

Posted on

Fear Is Thrown Away

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment.” I John 4:18

When a child is frightened, he needs comfort more than courage, consolation more than logic, and compassion more than proof. He needs the caring arms of a loving adult to be wrapped around him until his fear melts – finding consolation in the presence of someone who cares.

That’s exactly what God does when we are afraid!!! He longs to wrap us in his loving arms. He wants us to know Him intimately as our wonderful, protective Father. The closer we draw to Him, the more we can trust in His perfect love. We can’t really fathom what perfect love means, because our best attempts at understanding God’s flawless love are marred by our sinful nature!

The apostle Paul reminds us that God’s perfect love is indeed difficult to understand as he writes in Ephesians 3:19, “That you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes (far surpassing mere) knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (erb now: words such as these in 3:19 able to comprehend with all saints; width, length, depth & height; may be filled with all the fullness of God, plus yesterday’s song “The Love of God,” continually inspire me to greater heights of intimate trust & commitment.

Learn to write your hurts in the sand and to carve your blessing in stone… David Jeremiah   Discovery 04/17

Today let His perfect love throw away your fears. As you do, you will feel His loving arms wrapping around you with His comfort, consolation, and compassion.

Fear knocked on the door. Faith answered. No one was there.  Anonymous

NEXT UP: Implications from the historic Miami Heat vs. the Los Angeles Lakers winning streaks….

Posted on

Could We With Ink The Ocean Fill?

You are an epistle of Christ … written not with ink but by the Spirit of the Living God. II Corinthians 3:3

This may be a far-fetched illustration, but let’s give it a try. According to MSNBC, The British Medical Journal recently reported the case of a 76-year-old woman who visited her doctor complaining of stomach problems. When the scans came back, doctors were amazed to see a long object in her stomach, it was a pen! The woman remembered having put a pen in her mouth 25 years ago. She lost her balance, fell, and swallowed the pen. Her doctor at the time didn’t believe it, and the x-ray equipment of that day didn’t detect it, so nothing was ever done about it.

Now here’s the remarkable thing. When surgeons removed the pen, it still worked. Sometimes we feel we’re like being swallowed up in troubles, trials, pressures, and problems. But our God watches over us as He watched over Jonah in the belly of the whale. Trials produce testings, but from testings come testimonies. We never lose our message. We never run out of ink. Because of Christ, we never lose our ability to write the words: “Great is Thy Faithfulness!” Discovery: Experiencing God’s Word Day by Day.  2012 Feb 24 David Jeremiah.

Think about it. Most of the world around you doesn’t read the Bible. So … God gives the world a living epistle – you! Kay Arthur. As Silver Refined 1997)

And Now For the Rest of His Story while couched in our history… This time from Keith Miller

Last Sunday at our local Mennonite church, we sang the “The Love of God,” a hymn I’ve always enjoyed  for its wonderful third verse, with its convoluted syntax.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,

And were the skies of parchment made;

Were every stalk on earth a quill,

And every man a scribe by trade;

To write the love of God above

Would drain the ocean dry;

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

Though stretched from sky to sky.

By a weird coincidence, I got an email from my dad the next day, commenting on the origins of the verse. He’d learned about it from my uncle, who goes to church with Jeremy Nafziger, a writer interested in church music. Here are Jeremy’s comments (used with permission):

Frederick Lehman, the author and composer, sounds like he should be a Mennonite, but alas, he was a Nazarene minister. Early in his ministry (around 1900), he heard a preacher end his sermon with lines similar to the third verse of this hymn. The lines had been found scribbled on the wall of an insane asylum after the inmate’s death; Lehman says that “the general opinion was that this inmate had written it in moments of sanity.”

Lehman later used the words, slightly altered, years later as the third stanza of “The Love of God.”

It turns out, however, that the lines from the asylum wall came from a long poem written in Aramaic in the 11th century by a Jewish rabbi in Worms, Germany. (Note—the author was Rabbi Ben Isaac Nehorai, in a poem called “Hadamut,” written in 1050.)

And that may not even be the original—the Koran, written in Arabic four centuries earlier, contains this passage: “And were every tree that is in the earth (made into) pens and the sea (to supply it with ink), with seven more seas to increase it, the words of Allah would not come to an end; surely Allah is Mighty, Wise” (XXXI:27).

And you can go further back than that, to the Gospel of John, to find another similar passage. In the last verse of the book, we read: “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”

BOTTOM LINE:
So in this one hymn, we see the story of ALL God’s children signing the covenant that “shall forevermore endure.”

Keith Miller March 31, 2012. See millerworlds.blogspot.com/2012/03/love-of-god

NEXT UP: Fear is thrown away>>>>>

Posted on

The Eat Move Sleep Finale!

Small Choices Change Everything

Making better choices takes work. There is a daily give and take, but it is worth the effort. The vast knowledge we have to prevent cancer, heart disease, and other chronic illnesses is staggering. Every day, I read about new ideas that could help someone I care about live a longer and healthier life.

Over the last decade, I have dedicated a great deal of time to organizing this virtual sea of information in a way that can benefit others. What I look for are simple and proven ideas. I read a wide range of academic studies and research-based articles — from medical and psychological journals to in-depth books — and try to extract knowledge that can help people make better decisions and live healthier lives.

Let me be clear. I am not a doctor. Nor am I an expert on nutrition, exercise physiology, or sleep disorders. I am just a patient. I also happen to be a researcher and voracious reader who loves to extract valuable findings and share them with friends. In this book, you will find the most credible and practical ideas I have found so far.

What I learned from all this research influences my countless daily decisions. Every bite of food either increases or decreases my odds of spending a few more years with my wife and two young children. Half an hour of exercise in the morning makes for better interactions all day. Then a sound night of sleep gives me energy to tackle the next day. I am a more active parent, a better spouse, and more engaged in my work when I eat, move, and sleep well.

What seem like small or inconsequential moments accumulate rapidly. When your good daily decisions outweigh your poor ones, you boost your chances of growing old in better health. Life itself is a big game of beating the odds. Take, for example, these four largely preventable diseases: cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and lung disease. Combined, they kill nearly 9 in 10 people.

Researchers have estimated that 90 percent of us could live to age 90 with some simple lifestyle choices. What’s more, we could live free of common diseases that make our final years miserable. Even if you have a family history of heart disease or cancer, most of your fate is in your control.

A recent study suggests you do not “inherit” longevity as much as previously believed. Instead, the sum of your habits determines your life span. How long you live is more about how you live your life and less about how long your parents lived.

I am a living testament to the fact that lousy predispositions can be encoded in your genes. Yet even in this extreme case, my decisions affect the odds of new tumors growing and my existing cancers spreading. The reality is, the majority of your risk in life lies in the choices you make, not in your family tree.

No single act can prevent cancer or guarantee you will live a long life. Anyone who promises you something that absolute is a fraud. What I will share in this book are some of the most practical ideas to improve your odds of a longer, healthier, and more fulfilling life.

30 Days to Better Decisions

As you read this book, I hope you find ideas that work for you and test them over the next month. From my own experience and from observing others, I have noticed that making better choices often becomes automatic after just a couple of weeks. However, it takes some initiative — on your own, with a friend, or as part of a group — to take the first step.

Each chapter has three research-based findings and concludes with three ideas for how you can apply them in your life. (See the Table of Contents at the bottom. Please take a minute to notice how each chapter addresses a specific component of eat, move, & sleep) Challenge yourself to use at least one idea per day for the next month. Write them down. Post them somewhere in your home or office. See if you can make good decisions automatic.

If one of these strategies works for you, stick with it. If not, move on to the next one. It’s up to you to determine which ideas make sense and can improve your life the most. No one can do everything in this book, period. But you should be able to add at least a few ideas into your daily routine. On the book’s website, www.eatmovesleep.com, you can:

•​Create a personalized Eat Move Sleep Plan based on your needs and behaviors •​Use the Reference Explorer for direct links to more than 400 academic journals, books, articles, and notes

•​Download the First 30 Days Challenge and other tools to use with friends, groups, and teams.

Have fun. The key is to create a plan that works for your unique situation. If you apply some of the ideas with at least one friend, you can greatly increase your odds of building new habits. Or, if you prefer to test things as you go, keep moving at your own pace. Creating a few new patterns in the next month will lead to healthier choices for years to come.

The Eat, Move, Sleep Equation

Starting your day with a healthy breakfast increases your odds of being active in the hours that follow. This helps you eat well throughout the day. Consuming the right foods and adding activity makes for a much better night’s sleep. This sound night of sleep will make it even easier to eat well and move more tomorrow.

In contrast, a lousy night of sleep immediately threatens the other two areas. That bad night of sleep makes you crave a less healthy breakfast and decreases your odds of being active. In the worst-case scenario, all three elements start to work against you, creating a downward spiral that makes each day progressively worse. This is why the book is structured to help you work on all three elements together and not broken into three parts about eating, moving, and sleeping.

New research shows that tackling multiple elements at the same time increases your odds of success, compared to initiating a new diet or exercise program in isolation. Eating, moving, and sleeping well are even easier if you work on all three simultaneously. These three ingredients for a good day build on one another. When these elements are working together, they create an upward spiral and progressively better days.

If you eat, move, and sleep well today, you will have more energy tomorrow. You will treat your friends and family better. You will achieve more at work and give more to your community.

It all starts with making decisions like tomorrow depends on it. 

CONTENTS

The New Edition and Welbe App

 Eat Move Sleep

1 The Three Building Blocks

Forget Fad Diets,

 Forever Make Inactivity Your Enemy

Sleep Longer to Get More Done

2 Big Changes Through Small Adjustments

Every Bite Is a Net Gain or Loss

Step Away From Your Chair

Sleep Makes or Breaks a Day  

3 One Good Choice at a Time

What Counts More Than Calories

Use Product Placement at Home

Work Faster While You Walk

4 Forming Better Habits

Sugar Is the Next Nicotine

Substitutes Are a Nicotine Patch

Take Two Every Twenty

5 Giving Your Immune System a Boost

Judge Food by the Color of Its Skin

A Vaccine for the Common Cold

Quality Beats Quantity in Bed

6 Lifestyle Choices That Count

Wear a New Pair of Genes

Measuring Makes You Move More

Target 10,000  

7 Arranging Your Day More Energy

Be Less Refined

Family Style Is Making Us Fat

Burn Calories After Your Workout

8 Why Timing Matters

Empty Stomach, Bad Choices

The 20-Minute Meal Rule

Move Early for a 12-Hour Mood Boost

9 Quick Fixes

The First Order Anchors the Table

Move With Both Sides

Fight the Light at Night

10 Making Smarter Decisions

Prioritize Your Protein

Stop Buying Junk for Friends

Find Your Motivation to Move

11 Staying Healthy While You Work  

Keep Work From Killing You

The Danger of Desktop Dining

Working While Intoxicated

12 Going Cold Turkey

The Throwaway Foods

Help a Quitter Win

Hit Snooze and You Lose

13 Myth Busting

The Butter Is Healthier Than the Bread

Don’t Eat Your Meat and Potatoes

Be Cold in Bed

14 Health Starts at Home

Small Plates, Smaller Waistline

 Staying Active Starts at Home

Make Sleep a Family Value

15 Planning Ahead

Don’t Be Fooled by the Decoy

Structure Exercise for Enjoyment

A Night to Remember

16 Staying Sharp

Avoid a High-Fat Hangover

Take Your Brain for a Walk

Try Exercise Instead of Sleeping Pills

17 Rising to Expectations  

Create Barrier Labels

Organic Does Not Equal Healthy

Go Public With a Goal

18 Good Nights

Feast at Sunrise, Fast at Sunset

Television Shortens Your Life Span

Protect Your Final Hour

19 Rethinking Things

Dried and Juiced Is Fruitless

Don’t Judge a Box by Its Cover

Make Noise at Night

20 Fine-Tuning Your Routine

Less Heat, Better to Eat

Driving to Divorce

Sleeping in Only Sounds Good

21 Living in the Now

Buy Use It or Lose It Foods

How You Move Matters

Keep Stress From Ruining Your Sleep

22 The Ultimate Anti-Aging Solutions

Get a Tan From Tomatoes

Look Younger With Each Step

Sleep to Impress

23 Giving Healthy Choices a Chance

Eat the Healthiest Food First

The Right Way to Get High

Sleep Your Way to a New Day

24 Holding Yourself Accountable

Grab a Handful

Take Five Outside

Pay for Peer Pressure

25 Preventive Measures

Eat to Beat Cancer

Get a Prescription for Exercise

Know Two Numbers by Heart

26 Clearing a Path

Buy Willpower at the Store

Clean Your Brain and Bowels

Sleep On It

27 Creating New Habits

Save the Cake for Your Birthday

Indulge Less to Enjoy More

Take Credit to Make It Count

28 Being a Trendsetter

Broccoli Is the New Black

Stick With Coffee, Tea, and Water

Tame Ties and Tight Pants

29 Everything’s Connected

Fight Risk With Food

Gain Sleep With Weight Loss

Eight Is Enough

30 In a Nutshell

Every Meal Matters

Put Activity Before Exercise

Invest in Sleep for Your Future

Concluding Thoughts

BOTTOM LINE: I estimate my readers are averaging 60-70 years of age and quite frankly, are already experiencing the major health setbacks the years of ignoring the eat-move-sleep truths in this book are now inflicting on us. We oldsters with this later in life experiential wisdom now being front and center, have some difficult choices to make, and quite frankly, they will be even more difficult than those we should have made in our thirties with kids had we read and implemented eat-move-sleep then while in our prime.

Now as “matured experienced seniors,” we have the opportunity to read this book, much as we do our Bibles, and become ambassadors for both of them to those in our spheres of influence. I do believe as we seek His guidance He will provide us the action steps when sharing from either the spiritual or the physical perspective, by always, absolutely always, being loving, inviting, compassionate, humble, with the demeanor of a servant but the assurance of being a child of the King. No excuses. No fear.

Face it folks, I believe our generation is so “turf absorbed” that we literally can’t converse over the fence, over coffee, in SS class, and especially with our kids, on the hot-button meaningful concerns of our hearts and minds. And it’s not at all that we have all the answers, but we do suspect the younger generations do not fully grasp what the future questions might be, are, or even their implications for today, tomorrow, whatever, whenever… But hopefully, we all know absolutely Who does and in His Assurance, we do indeed rest until our future arrive.

Just perhaps this quick & easy eat-move-sleep read will inspire you to try at least to impact the future physical health of your kids and the grands…. and break the ice to discussions beyond… I’m not blowing smoke here. Last evening we were all in Barnes & Nobles ( likely 5-8 years since I’ve last visited) looking at children’s books and I got so hung up on the display of the Golden Books (not so golden anymore, more like propaganda) and such as Simon & Schuster’s This Little Rainbow: A Love is Love Primer, and that was as far as I got in 30 minutes… Appalling is the word that comes to mind. But why am I so naive to be appalled considering the hour?

Next Up: “Could We With Ink the Ocean Fill?”

Posted on

Absolutely the Best Honest Candid Concise Collection of Wisdom to Steward Your Daily PHYSICAL Daily Activities anywhere out there….

No joke folks. You’re in for an adventure the next three days. I was reminded by my eldest son Ben while getting our visas in Panama last month that it was he who had suggested I read Tom Rath’s book, Eat, Move, Sleep: How Small Choices Make a Big Difference. I’ve promoted it to all the the associated health professionals I encounter since introduced, and I may have mentioned it briefly prior in several of my 312 prior blogs, but now, I’m literally compelled to PROMOTE it to you, as I do believe we are in for some changes very soon that we are not at all prepared for that will affect us in every known, even unknown, dimensions of life monumentally, simply by the way we eat, move, and sleep.

So here goes. And the clincher I maybe should throw out here is, Ben did retire at 41 from the only employer he actually ever had beginning in his second year at University of Cincinnati while Co-oping with Great American. He tells his brothers though he’s fortunate to be able to live now on income from former investments so he could leave the corporate race, and that he is really more of a starving artist in that he and Jill are working together on another future income producer. Actually, his first job began with me when he was five by closing bottles and placing labels on thousands of bottles in the milk testing lab, in order to buy his first bike, and continued in various capacities through his first year at Wayne College prior to co-oping. The upshot of it all is I’m still working PT in my micro lab at 75, though it too, is my choice.

I recall only loaning two people my copy of Eat Move Sleep. I am waiting on the first person to spontaneously with out me asking, continue the initial conversation after reading it which had prompted him making the decision to discontinue a hobby business that he was really enjoying BUT, it was damaging his health… A month ago I gave a copy to a local fellow after I noticed he had a desk like mine that you can adjust its height to either stand or sit at. He was primed already. I’ve been back twice to see him and he’s never at his desk! I just ordered two more copies so I can prospect more readers in person. It’s just who I am. Enjoy.

Eat  Move  Sleep

Introduction

Choices count. You can make decisions today that will give you more energy tomorrow. The right choices over time greatly improve your odds of a long and healthy life.

No matter how healthy you are today, you can take specific actions to have more energy and live longer. Regardless of your age, you can make better choices in the moment. Small decisions — about how you eat, move, and sleep each day — count more than you think. As I have learned from personal experience, these choices shape your life.

A Personal Perspective

At age 16, I was playing basketball with friends when I noticed something wrong with my vision. There was a black circle in the middle of my visual field. I assumed it would go away. Instead, it got progressively worse. I finally told my mom, who immediately took me to an eye doctor.

That black spot turned out to be a large tumor on the back of my left eye. The doctor said it might lead to blindness. As if that was not enough, I needed to get a blood test to rule out other medical problems. A few weeks later, my mom and I went back to the doctor’s office for the results.

The doctor told us I had a rare genetic disorder called Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL). While VHL typically runs in families, my condition was a new mutation that affects just one in every 4,400,000 people. This mutation essentially shuts off a powerful tumor suppressor gene and leads to rampant cancerous growth throughout the body.

I still vividly recall sitting on one side of a large wooden desk as my doctor tried to explain what it would be like to battle cancer for the rest of my life. It was one of those moments when your stomach sinks and your mind races for an alternate explanation. My doctor then described how I was also likely to develop cancer in my kidneys, adrenal glands, pancreas, brain, and spine.

While the thought of losing my eyesight was tough, these longer-term issues were even more daunting. That conversation with the doctor forced me to wrestle with much larger questions about my life. Would people treat me differently if they knew about my illness? Was there any chance I would get married and have kids? Perhaps most importantly, I wondered if there was any way I could live a long and healthy life.

Doctors tried everything to save my eyesight, from freezing the tumors to cooking them with a laser. But the sight in my eye never returned. Once I got over this loss, I turned my attention to learning everything I could about the other manifestations of this rare disease.

I quickly realized that the more I learned, the more I could do to increase my odds of living longer. As new information emerged, I discovered I could stay ahead of my condition with annual MRIs, CTs, and eye exams. If doctors caught tumors early, when they were small, the tumors were less likely to spread and kill me. Learning that was a huge relief. Even if it required some difficult surgeries, there was something I could do to live longer.

I have had annual exams and scans for 20 years now and currently have small tumors in my kidneys, adrenal glands, pancreas, spine, and brain. Every year, I “watch and wait” to find out if any of these tumors are large enough to require surgery. In most cases, they are not.

Waiting around for active tumors to grow may sound nerve-racking. It could be, if I dwelled on the genetic condition that is beyond my control. Instead, I use these annual exams to stay focused on what I can do to decrease the odds of my cancers growing and spreading.

BOTTOM LINE:

As each year goes by, I learn more about how I can eat, move, and sleep to improve my chances of living a long and healthy life. Then I apply what I learn to make better choices. I act as if my life depends on each decision. Because it does. 

NEXT UP: More of the same..

Posted on

Perhaps GRACE is not so much an “if-then” kind of statement, but rather, a “because-therefore pronouncement & unconditional promise. Think about it!

Even those of us who have tasted the radical saving grace of God find it naturally difficult not to put conditions on grace (e.g., “Don’t take it too far, keep it balanced”). The truth is, however, that a “yes, grace, but” posture is the kind of posture that perpetuates slavery in our lives and in the church. Grace is radically unbalanced. It has no “but.” It’s unconditional, uncontrollable, unpredictable, and undomesticated.

As Doug Wilson put it, “Grace is wild. Grace unsettles everything. Grace overflows the banks. Grace messes up your hair. Grace is not tame….  Unless we are making the devout nervous, we are not preaching grace as we ought.” Graces scares us monumentally in every way because it wrestles control out of our hands. However much we hate of are uncomfortable with law, we are more afraid of grace.

Gerhard Forde, in his wonderful book Justification by Faith: A Matter of Death & Life, says that “the gospel of justification by faith is such a shocker, just an explosion, because it is an absolutely unconditional promise. It is not an ‘if-then’ kind of statement, but a ‘because-therefore’ pronouncement: because Jesus died and rose, your sins are forgiven and you are righteous in the sight of God!”

BOTTOM LINE:

Contrary to what we conclude naturally, the gospel is not too good to be true. It is true! No strings attached. No buts. No conditions. No need for balance. If you’re a Christian, you are right now under the completely sufficient imputed righteousness of Christ.  Have you shared this good news today?

May 25 It Is Finished: 365 Days of Good News Tullian Tchividjian

NEXT UP: We’re leaving Thursday 6 AM for Amherst MA for our grandson’s second birthday returning June 10. I’m planning to do a three day post of Tom Rath’s candid & personal examination of the way we invest or steward our physical daily activities in the introduction to one of his books, Eat, Move, Sleep: How Small Choices Make a Big Difference. And, I’m not planning on including any scripture for you budding atheists, agnostics, etc, a trifled annoyed at my persistence. This blog is all purely invitational, you can unsubscribe anytime. Email me directly, if you experience difficulties unsubscribing. Or, on the hand, if you enjoy the venue and know others who may also, share the address. We’re always seeking to lengthen the table, or broaden the porch and the surrounding patio. Time is short. Focus. Blessings everyone.

PS: A few minutes ago, @4:40 AM, dailylightdevotional.org led me to Hebrews 4:11 about resting; I’d be remiss not to include this scripture as it is so appropriate for this post. As is Utmost today titled “Yes-But…! “Trust completely in God, and when He brings you to a new opportunity of adventure, offering it to you, see that you take it.” Also, in today’s NIV One Year Bible, the OT details events while King David is exiting the palace for Absalom, the NT details Peter’s thrice denial and Pilate’s lines “What is Truth?” and “What I have written, I have written.”

Go forth today under THE influence!

Hebrews 4:4-16 (MSG) 

4. Somewhere it’s written, “God rested the seventh day, having completed his work,”

5. but in this other text he says, “They’ll never be able to sit down and rest.”

6. So this promise has not yet been fulfilled. Those earlier ones never did get to the place of rest because they were disobedient.

7. God keeps renewing the promise and setting the date as today, just as he did in David’s psalm, centuries later than the original invitation: Today, please listen, don’t turn a deaf ear…

8. And so this is still a live promise. It wasn’t canceled at the time of Joshua; otherwise, God wouldn’t keep renewing the appointment for “today.”

9. The promise of “arrival” and “rest” is still there for God’s people.

10. God himself is at rest. And at the end of the journey we’ll surely rest with God.

11. So let’s keep at it and eventually arrive at the place of rest, not drop out through some sort of disobedience.

12. God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey.

13. Nothing and no one is impervious to God’s Word. We can’t get away from it—no matter what.

14. Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers.

15. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin.

16. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.

Posted on

The Poor Rich Man

Matthew 6:21 “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

A certain Muslim lived on a cottage on a hill. Every week he rode his camel to a little stream, And, every week as the camel stopped to drink, it nosed up the pebbles in order to make a deeper place for drinking. Again and again, the Muslim picked up the bright stones the animal uncovered and took them home with him.

One day a traveler told the Muslim of the easy comfort and riches that certain men in the city enjoyed; the traveler filled the Muslim’s eyes and heart with discontent. So, he sold his cottage and wandered the earth looking for money and such treasures. Finally, he died in rags and poverty, and was buried. The man who bought the cottage found the stones and preserved them.

One day a merchant came to his home and discovered the well-preserved stones were diamonds. The owner of the diamonds immediately became a millionaire. Note, the first man unknowingly possessed great wealth, but being ignorant of it, sold it and traveled the world looking for it. The second owner of the cottage simply made use of what he had.

BOTTOM LINE:

All people have eternal life at their disposal. Some people respond to this treasure like the first man, some like the second.

A few minutes ago dailylightdevotional.org guided me to Hebrews 2:17-18 for a rooted perspective to the above parable. I’ve included Chapter 3. Try KJV or NIV as well. Reflect on the gift to us beyond mere pebbles…

Hebrews 3:1-19 (MSG)

  1. 1. So, my dear Christian friends, companions in following this call to the heights, take a good hard look at Jesus. He’s the centerpiece of everything we believe,
    2. faithful in everything God gave him to do. Moses was also faithful,
    3. but Jesus gets far more honor. A builder is more valuable than a building any day.
    4. Every house has a builder, but the Builder behind them all is God.
    5. Moses did a good job in God’s house, but it was all servant work, getting things ready for what was to come.
    6. Christ as Son is in charge of the house. Now, if we can only keep a firm grip on this bold confidence, we’re the house!
    7. That’s why the Holy Spirit says, Today, please listen;
    8. don’t turn a deaf ear as in “the bitter uprising,” that time of wilderness testing!
    9. Even though they watched me at work for forty years, your ancestors refused to let me do it my way; over and over they tried my patience.
    10. And I was provoked, oh, so provoked! I said, “They’ll never keep their minds on God; they refuse to walk down my road.”
    11. Exasperated, I vowed, “They’ll never get where they’re going, never be able to sit down and rest.”
    12. So watch your step, friends. Make sure there’s no evil unbelief lying around that will trip you up and throw you off course, diverting you from the living God.
    13. For as long as it’s still God’s Today, keep each other on your toes so sin doesn’t slow down your reflexes.
    14. If we can only keep our grip on the sure thing we started out with, we’re in this with Christ for the long haul.
    15. These words keep ringing in our ears: Today, please listen; don’t turn a deaf ear as in the bitter uprising.
    16. For who were the people who turned a deaf ear? Weren’t they the very ones Moses led out of Egypt?
    17. And who was God provoked with for forty years? Wasn’t it those who turned a deaf ear and ended up corpses in the wilderness?
    18. And when he swore that they’d never get where they were going, wasn’t he talking to the ones who turned a deaf ear?
    19. They never got there because they never listened, never believed.

PS: The vital relationship which the Christian has to the Bible is not that we worship the letter, but that the Holy Spirit makes the words of the Bible spirit and life to us. Oswald Chambers The Psychology of Redemption, 1066 L

NEXT UP: Perhaps GRACE is not so much an “if-then” kind of statement, but rather, a “because-therefore pronouncement & unconditional promise.

Posted on

In baseball we call them “closers:” whereas in our lives, thoughts, & revelations, we call them “clinchers.”

I’d simply be remiss after yesterday’s post, not to continue in the vein Pastor Carl so aptly unveiled, perhaps hidden in our hidden underground bunker command centers, when he said something to the effect that God wasn’t as concerned about our actions, as He was about our attitudes that lead to our actions and far beyond.

So, you can understand when I read this this May 26 “Think on These Things” from David Jeremiah’s Destination’s 2013 devotional, how I was now enabled  to connect more of the dots from yesterday’s sermon, being more sharply focused by the Philippians 4:8 passage, “Whatever things are true … noble … just … pure … lovely … of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy-meditate on these things.”

Albert Einstein once said, “The world we have created is a product of our thinking; it cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” (So true, just consider for example what the largely demonic World Economic Forum, WEF, has accomplished in changing our thinking since their inception, by merely focused humanistic thinking … Erb) Einstein was using the term world in a global sense, but his point of view is often also true in our personal worlds. Our thoughts become attitudes; our attitudes spawn actions, our actions braid themselves into habits; and our habits determine our destiny.

The fastest way to change your world is to change your thinking. Crowd out impure thoughts with Scripture memory. Push aside anxious thoughts with biblical promises. Learn the power of meditating on the Word. Think on God’s Book, which is true, noble, just, pure, lovely, and of good report. Find ways for you personally to come topside being restored by His LIGHT destroying those underground caverns disrupting any further exposure to filthy or negative mental intake. Be “transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2), for you cannot change your life without changing your thoughts. For as you develop the “mind of Christ” (I Corinthians 2:16) the God of peace will be with you.

BOTTOM LINE:

… Is for we Christ Followers, as in baseball, to get across home plate, and bringing as many others as possible. My “closer”analogy has literally gone amuck! “Closers” are skilled at shutting down a potential rally in the ninth inning with the bases loaded to win the game. Actually, my analogy should have centered around RBI’s (runs batted in) or perhaps, “assists!” So regardless, whether it is by His “closers, RBI’s, assists, or clinchers,” wrap your body, mind, and soul today around the arsenal of Truth & Spirit God provides to assure victory from Darkness, and crossing Home Plate!  I’ve heard it said the biggest problem we have being His living sacrifice is that it is too easy for us to walk, crawl or roll off the altar, removing ourselves effectively from the Equation For LIFE, that being, living in faithful evangelism…

NEXT UP: A parable of a Muslim man’s uncanny investment in pebbles…

Posted on

Vows & Oaths Primer 101 : A.W. Tozer & KMC 5/27/24

Last Sunday Pastor Carl effectively captured our attention with the children’s SS song This Little Light of Mine and drove home his four points on marriage to insure our marital joy thrives recognizing its: 1.) Source…God’s plan is in His manual (not to be confused with civil unions), 2.) Sanctity (what God has joined let not man…, 3.) Sabotage … forces that damage/destroy bonds, & 4.) Solution … miracle working God, abide within His boundaries, Church community offer hope, get help early on…

Today (May 27) Pastor Carl drew from the Dr Seuss 1940 book Horton Hatches the Egg with its famous line “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant, an elephant is faithful 100 percent!” with the Biblical text taken from The Sermon on the Mount Matthew 5:33-37 concerning oaths; 33.) Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord all thy oaths,” concluding 37.) “But let your communication be yeah and nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” I am presuming Pastor Carl was suggesting we apply and remember the essence of this text by his PJR triggers of 1.) the Principle Jesus is Referencing not being a commandment, but rather our appeal to God by means of some sacred object; 2.) the Problem Jesus Revealed, we making oaths that we have no intention of keeping; & 3.) the Practice Jesus Recommends, that our being completely honest, truthful, transparent and righteous, is assured not by an oath, but stems from His Spirit residing within and directing us, such as calling off sick when we’re not, or fudging car title sale prices to lower either their, or our tax liabilities, or by telling someone when they request my time, that I already have plans, which are only not to do whatever they have for me…. Oh yes, we are so easily deceived…

Visit the kidronmennonite.com, click on Livestream, then select the desired date, or search Kidron Mennoite on YouTubes for the May 19 & 27th sermons.

Now, I said all the above just as a lead into my conversation with Jim & Doris Miller as Daniel Gerber and I were walking to our cars after SS. Jim informed me of a popular article by A.W. Tozer titled Five Vows to Make and Keep, which he recited to us briefly inferring he’d lived by it since hearing it, picking up on the morning’s sermon. Later Daniel sent me a copy of the Tozer’s Five Vows that I’ve slashed to half size below, but still, 1800 words. If desiring the full-length article, type in this address: /2016/12/five-vows-to-make-and-keep/

Five Vows to Make and Keep / Tozer

A.W. Tozer Five Vows to Make, AND THEN, Keep!

Some people object to taking vows, but in the Bible you will find many great men of God directed by covenants, promises, vows, and pledges. The psalmist was not averse to the taking of vows. He said, “Thy vows are upon me, 0 God, I will render my praises unto thee” (Psalm 56:12).

My counsel in this matter is that if you are really concerned about spiritual improvement – the gaining of new power, new life, new joy, and new personal revival within your heart -you will do well to make certain vows and proceed to keep them. if you should fail, go down in humility and repent and start over. But always keep these vows before you. They will help harmonize your heart with the vast powers that flow out and down from the throne where Christ sits at the right hand of God.

A carnal man refuses the discipline of such commitments. He says, “I want to be free. I don’t want to lay any vows upon myself; I don’t believe in it; it is legalism.” Well, let me paint a picture of two men.

One of them will not take vows. He will not accept any responsibility. He wants to be free. And he is free – in a measure – just as a tramp is free. The tramp is free to sit on a park bench by day, sleep on a newspaper by night, get chased out of town on Thursday morning, and find his way up a set of creaky stairs in some flophouse on Thursday night. Such a man is free, but he is also useless. He clutters up the world whose air he breathes.

Let’s look at another man – maybe a president or prime minister or any great man who carries upon himself the weight of government. Such men are not free. But in the sacrifice of their freedom they step up their power. if they insist upon being free, they can be free, just like the tramp. But they choose rather to be bound.

There are many religious tramps in the world who will not be bound by anything. They have turned the grace of God into personal license. But the great souls are the ones who have gone reverently to God with the understanding that in their flesh dwells no good thing. And they knew that without God’s enablement any vows taken would be broken before sundown. Nevertheless, believing in God, reverently they took certain sacred vows. This is the way to spiritual power. There are five vows I have in mind which we do well to make and to keep.

1. DEAL THOROUGHLY WITH SIN

Sin has been driven underground these days and has come up with a new name and face. You may be subjected to this phenomenon in the schools. Sin is being called by various fancy names – anything but what it really is. For example, men don’t get under conviction any more; they get a guilt complex.

Instead of confessing their guilt to God and getting rid of it, they sit on a couch and try and tell a man who ought to know better all about themselves. it comes out after a while that they were deeply disappointed when they were two years old or some such thing. That’s supposed to make them better.

The whole thing is ridiculous, because sin is still the ancient enemy of the soul. it has never changed. We’ve got to deal firmly with sin in our lives. Let’s remember that “the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.” Righteousness lies at the door of the kingdom of God. The soul that sins, it shall die.

This is not to preach sinless perfection. This is to say that every known sin is to be named, identified, and repudiated and that we must trust God for deliverance from it so that there is no conscious, deliberate sin anywhere in our lives. It is absolutely necessary that we deal thus, because God is a holy God and sin is on the throne of the world.

So don’t call your sins by some other name. if you’re jealous, call it jealousy. If you tend to pity yourself and feel that you are not appreciated, call it what it is – self-pity.

2. NEVER OWN ANYTHING (perhaps better said, OWN YOU!

I do not mean by this that you cannot have things. I mean that you ought to get delivered from the sense of possessing them. This sense of possessing is what hinders us. All babies are born with their fists clenched, and it seems to me it means, “This is mine!” One of the first things they say when they begin to speak, is “mine” in an angry voice. That sense of “This is mine” ‘is a very injurious thing to the spirit. If you can get rid of it so that you have no feeling of possessing anything, there will come a great sense of freedom and liberty into your life.

Now don’t think that you must sell all that you have and give it to charity. No. God will let you have your car and your business, your practice and your position, whatever it may be – provided you understand that it is not yours at all, but His, and all you are doing is just working for Him. You can be restful about it then, because we never need to worry about losing anything that belongs to someone else. If it is yours, you are always looking in your hand to see if it is still there. If it is God’s, you no longer need to worry about it.

3. NEVER DEFEND YOURSELF

We are all born with a desire to defend ourselves. And if you insist upon defending yourself, God will let you do it But if on turn the defense of yourself over to God, He will defend you. He told Moses in Exodus 23: “I will be an enemy unto thine enemies and an adversary to thine adversaries.”

What do we defend? Well, we defend our talents; we defend our service; and particularly, we defend our reputation. Your reputation is what people think you are, and if a story gets out about you, the big temptation is to try to run it down.

4. GUARD YOUR WORDS ABOUT OTHERS

Never pass anything on – about anybody else that will hurt him. “Love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). The talebearer has no place in God’s favor. if you know something that would hinder or hurt the reputation of one of God’s children, bury it forever. Find a little garden out back – a little spot somewhere – and when somebody comes around with an evil story, take it out and bury it and say, “Here lies in peace the story about my brother.” God will take care of it. “With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged.”

if you want God to be good to you, you are going to have to be good to His children. You say, “But that’s not grace.” Well, grace gets you into the kingdom of God. That is unmerited favor. But after you are seated at the Father’s table, He expects to teach you table manners. And He won’t let you eat unless you obey the etiquette of the table. And what is that? The etiquette of the table is that you don’t tell stories about the brother who is sitting at the table with you – no matter what his denomination, or nationality, or background.

5. NEVER ACCEPT ANY GLORY

God is jealous of His glory and He will not give His glory to another. He will not even share His glory with another. It is quite natural, I should say, for people to hope that maybe their Christian service will give them a chance to display their talents. True, they want to serve the Lord. But they also want other people to know they are serving the Lord. They want to have a reputation among the saints. That is very dangerous ground – seeking a reputation among the saints. It’s bad enough to seek a reputation in the world, but it’s worse to seek a reputation among the people of God. Our Lord gave up His reputation, and so must we.

I go along with this. If you are serving the Lord, and yet slyly -perhaps scarcely known to you – you are hoping to get just a little five percent commission, then look out! it will chill the power of God in your spirit. You must determine that you will never take any glory, but see that God gets it all.

BOTTOM LINE:

These vows cut against the old human nature. They introduce the cross into your life, and nobody ever walks back from carrying his cross. When you make these vows, remember, they strike at the heart of your self-life and there is never a place to go back to. And I say, “Woe unto the triflers!”

Now, if you happen to be one of those on whom God has laid His hand for a deeper life, a more powerful life, a fuller life -then I wonder if you would be willing to pray this kind of prayer: –

0 God, glorify Thyself at my expense. Send me the bill – anything, Lord. I set no price. I will not dicker or bargain. Glorify Thyself. I’ll take the consequences.

This kind of praying is simple, but it’s deep and wonderful and powerful. I believe that if you can pray a prayer like that, it will be the ramp from which you can take off into higher heights and bluer skies in the things of the Spirit.

NEXT UP: Time for a break from the intensive! How about encouragement and wisdom from Einstein in less than 300 words?

Posted on

THIS  MORNING WE AWOKE EARLY at 4:07…

I thought because we have several flower beds to work and plant before the showers arrive. At least, that was what I thought until I read the first three verses from dailylightdevotional.org which led me to all of I Cor 2… And last evening after attending and being greatly blessed by the first of Daniel Gerber’s Abiding worship services, all from seeds planted at the Pittsburg youth convention when he was a high school senior. I came home for a late supper and while scanning some new for me but old devotional books, I found this unique one that intensely resonated with my spirit as I’m been researching personal spiritual disciplines, this one titled “Joy in the Morning based on Psalm 30:5 “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” in David Jeremiah’s “Sanctuary: Finding Moments of Refuge in the Presence of God.” 2002 Jan 25 quoting,  

“It’s interesting that David follows a pattern of looking at the day that was begun in the creation account in Genesis. He says that weeping comes in the night, but joy comes in the morning. If you remember, when God created the heavens and the earth, He said, “the evening and the morning were the first day” (Genesis 1:5). We think just the opposite, don’t we? We think of a day as the morning followed by the evening.

I think there are wonderful truths embedded in God’s perspective on life. If you will look at your day as the evening and the morning instead of of the morning and the evening, you will begin your day in the evening by meditating on what you need to accomplish the next day, and asking God’s blessing on it. Then He is free to work in your heart and mind as you sleep to prepare for accomplishing those things. When Christ returns, there will be no more weeping. Weeping is ours during the night, but eternal joy is coming in the morning of Christ’s return.”

mle … These italicized words from above will no doubt cause me to evaluate and rethink the way I schedule my life. It appears I’ve been blindsided/broadsided! Perhaps this is why the Jewish Sabbath begins at sunset Friday evening and ends at sunset Saturday evening? Interesting!

Now for the dailylightdevotional.org scriptures before I Corinthians 2:

May 25 MORNING

How great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee! Psa. 31:19

Since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him. Isa. 64:4

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. I Cor. 2:9, 10

1 Corinthians 2:1-16 (MSG) 

1 You’ll remember, friends, that when I first came to you to let you in on God’s master stroke, I didn’t try to impress you with polished speeches and the latest philosophy.

2 I deliberately kept it plain and simple: first Jesus and who he is; then Jesus and what he did—Jesus crucified.

3 I was unsure of how to go about this, and felt totally inadequate—I was scared to death, if you want the truth of it—

4 and so nothing I said could have impressed you or anyone else. But the Message came through anyway. God’s Spirit and God’s power did it,

5 which made it clear that your life of faith is a response to God’s power, not to some fancy mental or emotional footwork by me or anyone else.

6 We, of course, have plenty of wisdom to pass on to you once you get your feet on firm spiritual ground, but it’s not popular wisdom, the fashionable wisdom of high-priced experts that will be out-of-date in a year or so.

7 God’s wisdom is something mysterious that goes deep into the interior of his purposes. You don’t find it lying around on the surface. It’s not the latest message, but more like the oldest—what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us, long before we ever arrived on the scene.

8 The experts of our day haven’t a clue about what this eternal plan is. If they had, they wouldn’t have killed the Master of the God-designed life on a cross.

9 That’s why we have this Scripture text: No one’s ever seen or heard anything like this, Never so much as imagined anything quite like it— What God has arranged for those who love him.

10 But you’ve seen and heard it because God by his Spirit has brought it all out into the open before you. The Spirit, not content to flit around on the surface, dives into the depths of God, and brings out what God planned all along.

11 Who ever knows what you’re thinking and planning except you yourself? The same with God—except that he not only knows what he’s thinking,

12 but he lets us in on it. God offers a full report on the gifts of life and salvation that he is giving us.

13 We don’t have to rely on the world’s guesses and opinions. We didn’t learn this by reading books or going to school; we learned it from God, who taught us person-to-person through Jesus, and we’re passing it on to you in the same firsthand, personal way.

14 The unspiritual self, just as it is by nature, can’t receive the gifts of God’s Spirit. There’s no capacity for them. They seem like so much silliness. Spirit can be known only by spirit—God’s Spirit and our spirits in open communion.

15 Spiritually alive, we have access to everything God’s Spirit is doing, and can’t be judged by unspiritual critics.

16 Isaiah’s question, “Is there anyone around who knows God’s Spirit, anyone who knows what he is doing?” has been answered: Christ knows, and we have Christ’s Spirit.

Blessings to you and your plans for this ’24 Memorial Day Weekend!

Posted on

Moving Forward &Thriving During Our Spiritual Disciplines, Be They Inward, Outward, or Corporate…

Before I sat down to write this conclusion, I had the opportunity to visit an elderly pastor, formerly an acquaintance, now becoming a dear friend, who is struggling with Parkinson’s. After catching up on the past week, I was explaining the Tony Reinke phone article and just ended up reading it to him, noticing when I began the avoidance motives, he was dozing. With lunch time approaching, I thought it best for me to move on allowing him a quick nap prior lunch saying perhaps we’d continue from there next time.

I mention this encounter for while reading this article again, I was reminded how vulnerable we as Christ Followers are today to the nuances and functional intricacies of this pocket sized idol that has been catapulted virtually into functioning as a living organism with its intrinsic addictive programed capabilities that we lazily elevate above our God endowed gifts diminishing and ultimately mothballing them as we shift our trust from Almighty God to merely one of many latest & greatest new & shiny objects, as we become the proverbial “cooked” frog when initially only seeking its comforting functional warmth.

Note these captivating devices once given free-reign in our daily treadmill of life are soon quietly unobtrusively under-girding our thought processes, and our subsequent actions & decisions, such that we are not even aware of the shift. These phones literally can think, recall, perform, store, capture and transmit data around the world and cloud, either electronically or even by its own voice, and now with AI, to even heal itself and continually diagnose and monitor the state of our health and make its dire or life-saving predictions. The list is endless; and all this occurs without fleshly eyeballs, blood, bone, heart, or brain. Just imagine! Even reproduction is in process, be it 3 D printers or cloning.

Remember how we chuckled as children during SS or Bible School at the foreign god idols during Bible days, being merely wood, stone or cast metal; “whatever were those heathen people thinking”? And then, we were even more judgmental when the children of Israel left the True God and worshipped their neighbor’s gods!

So, what about our situation now? It seems regardless of the date in history, without Christ, our hearts continue to gravitate toward some form of idolatry, be it identity or significance; all of which nudges out our love and adoration for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ; be it a spouse, children, work, trinkets, toys, heroes, castles, social media, sexual fulfillment, kingdoms, sports, hobbies, land, humanitarian causes, fame, recognition, unique skills, etc. The list is endless, and we may snicker at the obviousness of those listed, but all that really matters in the end, is that we know without a doubt exactly what is crowding out God and His Righteousness from being front and center in our lives right now!

 I’m suggesting by using this simple 9-year-old phone idolatry article that we just ponder, really ponder the significance of that one technological development, and the hundreds of generations of phones since Alexander G Bell in 1844 sent the phrase from Numbers 23:23, originally recorded as spoken from Balam to Balak “What hath God wrought?” by telegraph, the precursor of the telephone.

I remember well having the power line installed along our county road 120 in ’51 so we all had electricity, thanks to the REA, the Rural Electrification Association; a party line rotary dial phone installed in ’55, water piped into our home with a faucet in the hallway in ’56, and indoor plumbing with a kitchen sink and a bathroom in’59, but the TV got skipped until the next generation. All of these developments since the Industrial Revolution were of significance in the doors they opened and the lives they changed, but none quite compare to the impact of phones on us individually spiritually, especially when intertwined with video.

We can’t undo it or ignore it, as my father tried with daylight savings time when it was introduced. Monday thru Saturday night except for Wednesday night prayer meeting, we operated and lived on old time, standard time, not the new, or Daylight time. Both the mailman & the milkman just came an hour early and our few appointments were adjusted. Seems funny now, but I think we did it 2 or 3 summers, being normal duration then.

I also remember well our old Zenith tube radio taller than me then with its AM/short wave bands arriving several years after the electric poles were set, providing Christian radio programming such as “Songs in the Night” from the historic Moody Church, Bill Collins and the Sugarcreek Creek Gang series, Unshackled, and with three short wave bands to cruise, (surfing came later with internet), with programming all the way from Quito Ecuador, one of the few in English, and of course, our government’s Voice of America broadcasting the positive attributes of democracy around planet earth, which interestingly enough now, I have no recollections of content.

Although for some reason, I am reminded of the five words “How the mighty have fallen! It seems I am using those five words more frequently of late when pondering the current trending perspectives being floated out & about, in & around. Perhaps it’s because I just came across that phrase twice in my One Year NIV Bible reading on Wednesday May 22 in I Samuel 1: 19 in David’s lament quoting from verse 17, “David took up this lament concerning Saul and his son Jonathan, and ordered that the men of Judah be taught this lament of the bow (it is written in the book Jashar): 19.) Your glory O Israel, lies slain on your height. How the mighty have fallen!” True then, true now.

 For some weeks my copy of the book “A Church Dismantled: A Kingdom Restored” has been in plain sight on the top of several books, the bottom being my grandfather Gingerich’s very tattered Thompson’s The New Chain Reference Bible. A Church Dismantled was written by another acquaintance afflicted with Parkinsons, Conrad L Kanagy, whom I imagine would also echo these five words today, as he set the stage already in 2007 with his book “Road Signs For the Journey: A Study of Denominational Decline – and the Discovery of Hope in the Spirit’s Dismantling of the Church.” Isn’t that a novel perspective when the chatter today is confusingly more along the lines of “God Save the Queen?”

I mention all the above history only for perspective to awaken us to the lateness of the hour and how we of my generation are being lulled into spiritual oblivion, possibly even to our demise in our quest for “peace and safety” as espoused by our government and culture’s prior standard sources or benchmarks, which are already functionally dismantled, much as Kanagy has ascribed to the Church nearly 20 years ago.

I am very concerned for my generation, for even though we yet possess a knowledge and obedience toward the real and true God, we are fast becoming aware that individually and corporately we must up our game and demonstrate to all those in the cloud around or behind us, how exactly does our faith sometimes visibly sustain us and is witnessed by all those in our sphere of influence pleasantly exuding a NT freshness and an honesty unfortunately seldom intimately observed in & around our spiritually cultivated & anchored communities, let alone, be they ever personally encountered.

Our generation have & are witnessing historically the evolving of these intimate invasions into even how we communicate with God, and soon may have communication curtailed in our spiritual enclaves, or even more broadly, what we can communicate in or through any media at all anywhere.

Now, for those who graduated from high school in the past 20-30 years, their spiritual futures are suspect. Too many have been seriously handicapped being raised in the shadows of a glib shallow cultural institutional Christianity model sub-consciously characterized as authoritarian power based that I’ve been chief of the guilty promoting, “do as I say, & not necessarily as I do,” vividly juxtaposed with the invitational forgiveness love grace and mercy model, pervading & exemplified by Jesus as recorded in the gospels and vividly demonstrated in Acts of the Apostles and the following epistles.  

Bottom Line: We are out of time! And our phones are not the problem. We are. More to come. Until then. Read. Pray. Listen. Obey. More perhaps Sun evening. Or not. Blessings on your journey through the these inner disciplines….

Proudly powered by WordPress