I May Be In Shambles, But I’M SOWING MERCY EVERYWHERE!

When a person’s life is left in shambles, that’s a harsh place to be in and it can happen to anybody. But let me give you just a little bit of knowledge here. When these threatening situations, such as in the Luke 21 verses above, come into your life, you do realize that’s when Mercy is received? Any Mercy you sowed is received when a threat comes; not before, not days after, but at the time of engagement. Did you know that?

You do not reap Mercy during times of peace, you only reap Mercy during times of great threat. If you have sown Mercy and the threat comes, you will reap great Mercy. Remember, as mentioned prior, sowing mercy has to be real, for doing it as an “actor” or a hypocrite, will not work here, it has to be real. Ultimately, “actors” are separated from their souls as were Ananias & Sapphira.   

But if you’re spiritually real, and if you’ve been sowing Mercy, you got nothing to worry about during these future threatening times. I’m specifically addressing the spiritual female readers right now, for you may have a historical worry of torture and pain, of being hurt, for you are well acquainted with what pain is! And that frightens you, for just thinking will I ever have to go through anything like that again gives you anxieties. Will I have to suffer that torment again? So, let me begin by telling you this; strive to sow Mercy in truth.

Let’s back up first; if there’s one thing Satan is good at, it is talking people out of sowing Mercy, so that when the threat comes, there is no mercy to reap. Don’t let him rob or devastate you like that! He’s likely robbing you right now if he can. Let nothing stop you from sowing Mercy. When you intersect with a wrecked life, you sow mercy. Lend a hand. Have pity and compassion for that person. Don’t point at the person saying “that’s what you get.” Eventually you will see the destruction that will come for those who do such things when they’ve exercised no mercy. Such people exercising no mercy are in direct denial of God’s mercy. Do you know that? Because if they point to a person in the world and say that’s what they get, how easy then will it be for the Living God to point at you and say that’s what you get. He didn’t do that because when you were an offense to all His Righteousness, he sent Jesus, his only Begotten Son. He didn’t point at you and condemn you. Rather, He reached out his hands in mercy to embrace you by way of his Son.

NEXT UP: Finger Pointing 101 and your bill just came due!

The Coming Storm…

These things are basic principles that are real, that are effective, and they work immediately. When I say work, it’s because your Father has already spoken goodness and His blessings over you. So, what’s stopping them? Perhaps it’s time for us to start asking ourselves, how and where am I speaking against the goodness of the Lord, and go find it, wherever it is. Just find it. Start by listening to yourself speak. Then get rid of the negative unrighteousness, because in the time we’re living in right now, it is FOR REAL time.  

And honestly, part of me is excited, whereas the other part is mortified. Yes, mortified, because this “for real time right now” cannot be seen by many, just like His Word says, “That they would not recognize the end times.” And if he said it, then it’s true! We’re in the middle of something and some Christian people think we’re just about to begin this end time ordeal, and such thinking will catch them off guard.

Now, listen to me, all of you who realize that we’re in the middle of a season, and that season is about to come to a quick close. Should it overtake your brother or your sister who did not know or were not aware, do not ever scoff at them, but rather, lend them your hand. You pick them up, and remind them that the Father is right? Remind them of that. Never sit in the seat of agreement with the scornful. Don’t do that, but rather, pick them up, encourage them with truth.

I believe many Christians are going to correct how they see and interpret the world real soon. Period! And I’ll tell you this also, a day is coming for many of the perceived highly visible holy people of this world, when experiencing the coming chaos and confusion, will have their hearts fail them. In fact, I think this is a good time to insert Luke 21:8- 28 (MSG) for your review.

8. He said, “Watch out for the doomsday deceivers. Many leaders are going to show up with forged identities claiming, ‘I’m the One,’ or, ‘The end is near.’ Don’t fall for any of that.

9. When you hear of wars and uprisings, keep your head and don’t panic. This is routine history and no sign of the end.”

10. He went on, “Nation will fight nation and ruler fight ruler, over and over.

11. Huge earthquakes will occur in various places. There will be famines. You’ll think at times that the very sky is falling.

12.” But before any of this happens, they’ll arrest you, hunt you down, and drag you to court and jail. It will go from bad to worse, dog-eat-dog, everyone at your throat because you carry my name.

13. You’ll end up on the witness stand, called to testify.

14. Make up your mind right now not to worry about it.

15. I’ll give you the words and wisdom that will reduce all your accusers to stammers and stutters.

16. “You’ll even be turned in by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. Some of you will be killed.

17. There’s no telling who will hate you because of me.

18. Even so, every detail of your body and soul—even the hairs of your head—is in my care; nothing of you will be lost.

19. Staying with it—that’s what is required. Stay with it to the end. You won’t be sorry; you’ll be saved.

20. “When you see soldiers camped all around Jerusalem, then you’ll know that she is about to be devastated.

21. If you’re living in Judea at the time, run for the hills. If you’re in the city, get out quickly. If you’re out in the fields, don’t go home to get your coat.

22. This is Vengeance Day—everything written about it will come to a head.

23. Pregnant and nursing mothers will have it especially hard. Incredible misery! Torrential rage!

24. People dropping like flies; people dragged off to prisons; Jerusalem under the boot of barbarians until the nations finish what was given them to do.

25. “It will seem like all hell has broken loose—sun, moon, stars, earth, sea,

26. in an uproar and everyone all over the world in a panic, the wind knocked out of them by the threat of doom, the powers-that-be quaking.

27. “And then—then! they’ll see the Son of Man welcomed in grand style—a glorious welcome!

28. When all this starts to happen, up on your feet. Stand tall with your heads high. Help is on the way!”

It is good that we review and study such passages to remind us of these coming events. Chaos & confusion may overtake us, including even those institutional voices or self-proclaimed narrative purveyors we humanly tend to gravitate toward for their wisdom as witnessed on our device screens assuredly not aligning well with the truths God has revealed to you, either by Scripture or Spirit, in your body, soul & spirit, heart, mind & will. We must be diligent focusing only on Almighty God and the table He’s prepared for us, substantiated by His Love, Grace & Mercy.  

BOTTOM LINE:

And may the Lord have mercy on those people whose lives are wrecked. Don’t point to those people wrecked by the chaos & confusion and say that’s what they get. Don’t do that, and I’ll tell you why. Although the processes of LIFE itself are not certain for anyone, our endings are clearly defined in scripture, for example, as written above.

NEXT UP:  I Might Be In Shambles, BUT I’M SOWING MERCY EVERYWHERE!

The Mentality Needed for Five Talents vs One Talent

Money is the maturing agent that can cause unrighteous conditions to form in people, changing your speech, your attitude and about all of your other character benchmarks as well. Let me give you the warning again because I believe some of you are meant to be in charge of and the dispensing of great provisions, whether they be physical or mental blessings or gifts in His kingdom. Realize though managing or the distribution of such responsibilities may be accompanied with great sorrow. Let me explain.

Naturally, when you have access to resources, you’re going to get accustomed to them, as our children did with our affluence. Realize you’re not promised to have all that stuff so when it’s gone, it may well hurt. Do you hear me? You better realize this in the beginning, that one day it’s likely all going to be gone. When you get accustomed to those perky provisions, and suddenly they’re gone, your demeanor may go south quick! That’s the potential hurt I’m talking about. The hope is, is that you can build yourself up mentally & emotionally so as to remember, “Hey, I’m not promised these physical or mental blessings or gifts forever, so let me correctly utilize them right now so when they are no longer available, I don’t cobb an attitude and lose my righteousness.”

          BOTTOM LINE:

Do you really think your Father wants to give you something now, so that if & when later it’s gone, you slump into a spiritual or emotional depression and lose your righteousness? Why would the Lord give a person like that anything? Remember and rest in our Father’s provision, as well as His interpretation of the Parable of the Talents and the subsequent rewards.

          NEXT UP: The Coming Storm.

Watch Out For The Precursor Of Lust!

You remember the Lord teaching us to be content as in I Timothy 6:6 “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world and we can take nothing out of it.”  That’s what He taught us as the ultimate living servant example in the flesh, whereas our world and culture literally demands we not be content, to always lust after something extra. Gold, silver and stuff is going to be the damnation of many souls. Do you hear me? Our Father said, be content, not to LUST after more.

Therefore, we need to be trained as His servant ambassadors. You know what gets me, for I can see it on some of you, you are meant to have access to considerable resources. You are! But those resources must never lead your heart away from His model of servanthood. Never! If they do change you, they’re no good for you.

So, let me give you this litmus test. If having, or not having resources, alters your mood or perspective of generosity, then it has power over you, and you dare not accept its influence. In fact, you best refuse its association immediately! However that being said, the day your resources increase appreciably, and they do not change your mood or perspective of generosity, that’s the day you understand the additional blessings from God are only gifts from God to be dispensed as His kingdom’s tools. And while living in our “crucibles or furnaces of life” with that servant perspective, the Lord takes delight in loaning or facilitating through us whatever tools we need to complete His kingdom work.

Be warned however, if such a sudden abundance of resources causes you excitement, such that a “shopping fit drool comes out of your mouth,” you can forget it. The Lord is not going to give you anything that will increase the lust of your flesh. He will not.

Be content. Don’t look around your place and complain about what you’re missing. Stop doing that. That’s exactly what Satan wants you to do, because in so doing, you’re cursing God’s current provision for you. If you live in a shack with a leaky roof, I’m telling you right now, be thankful. Be thankful because that is your Father’s provision. For the moment, be thankful. Don’t curse his provision.

Understand whoever is thankful for God’s provision will have God’s adequate provision. Whoever rejects it, will go through a season, just like the Children of Israel did, frequently needing correction. They went through seasons where they had nothing; where everything was stripped away. Don’t put yourselves through that pain! That means right now, look around and be thankful for what you have and realize, truth be told, you really don’t even have to have what you do have! Learn to be content with what you have today. In other words, being content is simply to be thankful.

BOTTOM LINE: Don’t EVER feed the lust of your flesh.

NEXT Up:  The Mentality Needed for Five Talents vs One Talent

The remedy for defunct alignment/ revelation issues….

Now, imagine you have just realized you’re out of alignment or without revelation, in a relationship or a communication somewhere in your circle of influence, and it’s publicly visible and going to seed! You’re about to become a-real-deal bonafide “actor” sown by the enemy that Jesus spoke of in the Parable of the Weeds in Matthew 13:24. Understand the First Responders are on their way. In the mean-time though…

Step One: Hold your tongue. Don’t speak anything.

Because if you do speak, you’ll speak hypocrisy. See, this is why people who try to speak a goodness into their lives, discover such does not succeed. Let me tell you something. The truth of our Father is universal to all of us. And that means such declarations will not work for just one or two people. No, the truth is for everyone. Even for a heathen if he will accept it. There’s no special technique. None of that nonsense! Truth is truth. God calls it hypocrisy when we speak something that’s not internally aligned or revealed. And he forbids it. But we’ve gotten sloppy and do it anyway. So, what do you do when you know you’re harboring an element of the enemy (negativity) inside you? Too often, we talk too much!

Step Two: Turn off all social media (actually advise that forever).

Flee to your Altar or your prayer closet, and get your soul right by Getting on your knees, Confess, Repent, Forsake, Obey, Re-connect to the Vine, Refuel, Refresh, Rejoice, and Consider only the most-worthy alignment/revelation communications.

It does not take a day. It does not take a week. It’s only a decision! You’re either going to accept or not, just like the last time it happened. Only this time you’ve seen the LIGHT, NOW WALK IN IT, thereby accepting the free (and absolutely freeing) help He provides!

BOTTTOM LINE:  Don’t you let your mouth speak until you’re internally synched with the Holy Spirit.

Next UP: Watch Out For The Precursor Of Lust!

Hung by the Tongue

Let me be absolutely clear! Not one of you can speak death into my life. Not one. And I can’t speak death into your life. But you can speak death into your own life. And I can speak death into my own life.

Do you understand what’s been happening with you? You have been pushing God’s blessings away by the words you continue to repeat and accept in your heart about yourself. Can you see by pushing away the truth of God’s word in your life by allowing even a single thought to take control of your mind and its subsequent actions, that you are now speaking the opposite of the goodness of the Lord in your life. Do you see that? This is a direct assault of evil upon your life!

I am often asked, “Well, how do you fix that?”

The answer is so simple. “Stop doing it!”

See, because if you are studying your Bibles, you know that God has not recanted his blessings over your life. You’re simply resisting a good word over you. Stop resisting. Stop speaking like Charlie Brown. Stop believing your own death. Just know how you speak is what you accept.

May I give you a great caution yet?

Never speak forth anything that does not align with what God has put in your heart & mind.  Don’t do it. Listen to me, don’t do it, no matter what it is. Do not speak what does not align with what God has revealed to you or given to you in your body, soul & spirit, heart, mind, & will.

By you speaking out of alignment or without revelation is indeed the birthplace of the eventual blooming and going to seed possibly becoming a detrimental source or the root of hypocrisy or similar influence to the Matt 13 Parable of the Weeds (tares). And once rooted & blooming, and going to seed, you’ll become an “actor” in the body of Christ, that speaks Satan’s narratives; innumerable variations of darkness & destruction, chaos & confusion.

By speaking in compliance with what Satan, or even other “spiritual persons” expect or desire you to say or promote, that inwardly does not align with the Spirit within you or has not been revealed to you, will then set you up faster than you can imagine as a Charlie Brown puppet. For suddenly you’ll be out in the dark, stumbling around, hungry, lonely, and feeling, NO, not at all just merely feeling, for you will actually be living like the Prodigal Son. Wake up every one! Hypocrisy has consequences!

The MSG version of the Prodigal Son is much more to the point, “Father, I want right now what is coming to me!” And especially so, if you realize the gross disrespect being exemplified in that culture! We just rather gloss over that, don’t we? We being out of alignment, without revelation, and “a single thought from guess who” will start the whole stinkin’ thinkin’ process! God has totally armed you to destroy these petty distractions. Pay attention or you will suffer. Possibly even die!

NEXT UP: The remedy for defunct alignment/ revelation issues….

Revealing Signs of My Times: BENCHMARKERS?

Since my 60’s I’ve been tracking my physical limitations by noting those physical tasks increasingly requiring I use a ladder to reach, a pliers to grip, a ramp to roll an implement up, etc. Mentally as well, Pastor Karl challenged us years ago to memorize the Fruits of the Spirit, certainly a worthy task for observing the depth/maturity of our current spirituality. Just understand it has been my continual goal for years to quickly rattle off those nine descriptive words with no conclusive success. Only after forcing myself each morning since this New Years before reading my daily Proverbs chapter, have I accomplished this, and that with the crutch of the acronym of first letters L J P P K G F G S! I possess a strange mind indeed! See why I hallucinate at thinking I’ll ever learn Spanish?

So, as we age and become aware of these revealing and distressing benchmarks, we speak of our “new normals,” which are actually our compensations, in my case, too often excuses for laziness, as Loretta lovingly and patiently reminds me. Actually, God has really blessed me in the fact that after reading Scripture as I do frequently, He then inspires a worthy thought or a concept and I begin to write, and just as the MSG Gal. 5:22 below says that “fruit appears in an orchard,” thus far at least for me, my thoughts appear on the screen. Never mind, how slow they appear, or how long I struggle for particular words, etc.

FYI, I do understand that crossword puzzles and even writing are worthy deterrents for my innocuous less threatening terminology for my brain fog, “new normal” or not! However, I passionately avoid puzzles, both crossword and jigsaw. I presume it’s an expression of a genetic anabaptist workaholic modified gene?

BOTTOM LINE: Reading through Galatians this Sunday, though scuttling my walk, I was greatly encouraged by the directness and the simplicity of Paul’s encouragement to us from Ch 6:9-10 to utilize His resources before our individual & cultural benchmarkers will be removed by the sands of time, actually, even the planet:

9. So, let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit.

10. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.

Galatians 5:4, 13-26 (MSG)

4. I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace.

13. It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows.

14. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom.

15. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?

16. My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness.

17. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day.

18. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

19. It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness;

20. trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits;

21. the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.

22. But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments,

23. not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way.

24. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

25. Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives.

26. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.

Galatians 6:1-10 (MSG) 

1. Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out.

2. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law.

3. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.

4. Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others.

5. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.

6. Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.

7. Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—

8. harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.

9. So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit.

10. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.

Birth of Hypocrisy: Our Unhinged Tongues

I grew up as a child knowing that even before our births, God had already spoken blessings over our lives. It really makes me wonder now how I as a child could grow up in such a loving Christian home with literally a spiritual silver spoon in my mouth, be known as a “favorite son” of sorts, and yet, spend so many years as a blasphemer in the church?

Strange introduction perhaps, but it’s the truth, and the title “Birth of Hypocrisy” does set the stage, whether for me, or the church. Perhaps hypocrisy is learned in stages, like language. We have both experienced and observed the ease of learning becoming a negative person, likely from the Father of Lies.

The idea of the quantity or scale of negativity we’ve spewed forth verbally, whether private or public, since we learned to talk or cobb an attitude, is really immaterial. Sometimes negativity is directed at or of very specific intention, but when the chips are down, negativity will abound!

Given that common denominator, we as Christ Follower’s know well that our Lord and Savior has, and is, speaking a Fullness over our lives, but too often, we’re the ones, intentionally or not, literally being goaded into rejecting either His blessings or our Fullness, such that, when we look in the mirror, we’ll tell ourselves, “I knew I was no good at this. No good ever comes to me, no matter how hard I try. I’m always just missing everything up.”

When you go into that Charlie Brown mode, you are renouncing what God spoke over you. First, you must understand, you’re the only one that ever has a right to reject the intimacies the Father has spoken over you. Nobody else has that authority. Absolutely nobody!

Next, be aware there are things happening around you attempting to trick or confuse you into speaking against what God has spoken over you. Satan’s minions are continually attempting to get you to renounce the goodness your Father has spoken over your life. If and when that is accomplished, and darkness gets the better of you, you’re going revert into the Charlie Brown mode, and you’ll begin saying, “What’s the use? No good is coming to me. My life is always going to be like this.”

Saying phrases like that, confirms you’re speaking words opposite of your Father, literally destroying His intimate words of destiny for you! That’s what evil has been doing in your life. Can you see that? Because every time evil gains another stronghold area of influence in your life, what do you end up doing? You end up “getting hung by your tongue” rendering the blessings of the Living God in your life in-effective.

Consider KJV Proverbs 18:21 “Death and life are in the power of the tongue…” or the MSG, “Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit – you choose,” bringing forth encouragement, love, & healing, OR causing hurt, division, & destruction.

NEXT UP: Hung by the Tongue

BBF March 30 Romans 7:1-4 – Married To Christ

Taken from the boquetebiblefellowship.com website, audio sermon archives. Tuesday’s post was the prior Sunday’s sermon that was a review of the first six chapters of Romans. that began earlier in 2023 and concluded in December ’24. The study questions were actually sent me today for the 9 AM Friday Men’s Ministry in the morning and I included them to guide and facilitate your understandings during and after listening. I am suggesting this sound track is a rare find for your study at the opportune time. In the meantime however, you can better visualize this sermon’s important landscape’s benchmarks while listening in a tractor cab or driving to your appointments, etc.

May God anoint your time of listening and study.

Romans 7:1-4 – Married to Christ Questions

1.) Can anyone tell me what Jewish legalism means?

2.) What does the term “hyper grace” mean?

3.) Did Jesus come to abolish the Law of the Prophets? Or did He come to maintain it?

4.) How difficult was this for the Jews to accept?

5.) What about the gentiles? How confusing was this for them?

6.) Would it be valid to ask these same questions today? Why?

7.) What is the Moral Law of God?

8.) Does the Mosaic Law have any power to save us?

9.) What was the purpose, or the goal of the Mosaic Law?

10.) So why do you suppose God set things up this way?

11.) What does it mean to bear good fruit? And how does this come about?

Ever Had A Randomly Encountered Scripture Flood Your Day With His Foundational Joy?

A few minutes ago dailylightdevotional.org last verse of the AM verses sent me scrambling to I John 3 for context to better comprehend what v. 21 meant when it said “Beloved, if our heart condemns us not, then have we confidence toward God.” Really now? Is that even possible? For our hearts not to condemn us?

Succinctly, I’ve spent decades being condemned by the flip-flopping of either my conscience or Satan, etc., declaring me “unworthy” in all dimensions, terrorizing and holding me captive in my addictive sins. I am so reminded of the landmark verses in II Cor 7:10-11 “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow (merely being sorry) brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done.”

So imagine now, after years of being blessed walking empowered by the Spirit, the burst of joy the II Cor 6 chapter provided me Monday morning that I posted Tuesday morning,

And then this morning, while yet basking in these prior occurrences, I encounter v. 21 which opened the gate for the verses below. Amazing truths revealed afresh for me, hopefully for you as well. Give God the Glory!

1 John 3:13-24 (MSG)

  1. So don’t be surprised, friends, when the world hates you. This has been going on a long time.
  2. The way we know we’ve been transferred from death to life is that we love our brothers and sisters. Anyone who doesn’t love is as good as dead.
  3. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know very well that eternal life and murder don’t go together.
  4. This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves.
  5. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God’s love? It disappears. And you made it disappear.
  6. My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love.
  7. This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly, living in God’s reality.
  8. It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.
  9. And friends, once that’s taken care of and we’re no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we’re bold and free before God!
  10. We’re able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we’re doing what he said, doing what pleases him.
  11. Again, this is God’s command: to believe in his personally named Son, Jesus Christ. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command.
  12. As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us.

GO FORTH TODAY WITH JOY FOR AS LONG AS YOU’RE GIVEN BREATH TO LIVE RENEWED & EMPOWERED BY HIS SPIRIT.

True joy comes from our connection with God, not from life’s circumstances. We are called to rejoice even in adversity, trusting His presence. Contemplate Phil 4:4-9.