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    “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.  They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them”     It comforts me to know there is One within me who is greater than the one who is in the world.  We are not alone: we are possessed.  Within every human is a spirit that dwells in both the spiritual and natural realms.  This consciousness marks us from the rest of creation.  We are not mere animals, not because we have travelled to the moon, but because we imagined we could.  Our understanding of physics and math enables us to take command of our environment and travel beyond our world, but it is incapable of grasping spiritual truth and understanding.  Those who limit their understanding based on ‘science’ or natural wisdom imagine those who believe in God and in angels and demons, heave...

  The Parable of the Bags of Gold 14  “Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them.   15  To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, [ a ]  each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.   16  The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more.   17  So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more.   18  But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19  “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them.   20  The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’ 21  “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been...

  The Parable of the Ten Virgins 25  “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.   2  Five of them were foolish and five were wise.   3  The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them.   4  The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps.   5  The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. 6  “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ 7  “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps.   8  The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ 9  “‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’ 10  “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were rea...

  1/17/2023 Matthew 25 (the dangers of dabbling in Jesus) Dabbling in Jesus can send one to hell. Jesus tells three stories in Matthew chapter 25 that should give us pause: how serious are we about our relationship with Him? Five Virgins awaiting a wedding feast were prepared for his return; five weren’t and became strangers shut outside in the cold. Two servants were diligent about the resources Jesus gifted to them; one shrugged it off and got cast aside to suffer in the darkness. Believers who truly cared about the world’s dispossessed souls got to heaven; indifferent followers discovered they were phonies destined for Hell because they were unable to recognize Jesus among them. Identifying with Jesus is serious business and those who just dabble in a Jesus or church culture are warned to take another look at themselves and at the King of Kings. We all have one life to live here on earth. As much as we may want to hang on to it as long as possible, it will be brief in light ...

  1/14/2023 Judges 11:35 [NIV] "When he [Jephthah] saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, 'Oh no, my daughter! You have brought me down and I am devastated. I have made a vow to the Lord that I cannot break.' ” This disturbing passage in Judges is not about God demanding a human sacrifice, but about Jephthah’s ignorance of God. Nowhere in the story does it describe God’s interaction with him other than empowering him to defeat the Ammonites. Jephthah is the one who made a rash vow to God, then insisted it be kept. The moral of the story is about how our foolish pride compounded by our ignorance of God can lead to twisted morality. The world is filled with toxic religions that lead followers and repulsed observers away from God. When we interject our own thoughts and biases into the issue of God, rather than open ourselves to let the Holy Spirit of God show us Himself, we come away confused or hostile to Him. The Bible ultimately describes God’s very essence as Love ...

  1/11/2023 John 10:31-34 [NIV] "Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.” Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’[Psalm 82:6]? So, according to Jesus we are gods. I have skirted around this verse in the Bible because I didn’t know how to process it. But I realized this morning that Jesus had a reason for quoting this scripture to his enemies who ended up having him crucified. It reveals two critical truths: Jesus is God and we are not, in this age where people are being led to believe their morality does not come from God, but from ‘us’ or even ‘me’. “I am” is in direct opposition to God, whose Name is “I AM that I AM”. God said: “there is no other god beside me”. “I” am a god whose will ...

  1/3/2003 John 1:4-5 [NIV] "In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome [did not comprehend] it." “Does not compute”. This familiar term describes a computer’s inability to make sense of input given it and leads to a breakdown in its ability to process information. This verse in the Gospel of John describes how light shines in darkness and there is nothing darkness can do about it. Neither darkness nor Evil has the ability to overcome the light of God. Evil can only overcome good when our good confronts it on evil’s terms. “Good” people cannot fight evil apart from God, because only God is Good and Light. This explains why all the best human intentions that exclude God will go sideways and end up doing more harm than good. Political revolutions intended to correct evil almost always end up producing more evil. Social justice interventions based on compassion like ‘harm reduction’ incre...

  "But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” No one in all human history ever received a greater message from God. The Firstborn of all creation who is the visible representation of the unknowable God Almighty and through whom everything was created was to enter the human race and change human history as a baby born to become the Lamb slain before the creation of the world. This message carried Mary through the hardship and dangers ahead of her, and the heartache of the sacrifice of her son as the sacrifice for her sin and for everyone else who became born anew as a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ. The song “Mary Did You Know?” captures the great gulf b...

  10/14/2022 Jeremiah 29:8 …“Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have." The enemy is pleased when God is cursed by society because of his own people. Our grumbling and complaining about our lot in exile (which society can sometimes seem to be) give inspiration to the false prophets among us who imagine they are 'speaking truth to power' in the name of God when they feed the flames of our hostility against those who despise and criminalize us for being God’s people. This becomes a self-fulling prophecy that goads God's people to strive against society. Jeremiah goes on to prophecy how Israel must stand up against their captivity by living normal lives and supporting and praying for their captors because God is going to bless them now and restore them in 70 years. That is the context for a following oft-quoted verse 11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper...

  10/12/2022 John 8:32 – “…you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” “Decide your own truth” is the ‘upside-down’ to Truth. It is a lie designed to imprison us in our own selfishness. Like the bizarre underworld in the popular streaming series where everything good in this world is transmogrified into a twisted counterpart in a parallel world, our selfish nature creates a toxic world where one can come to believe good is evil and evil is good. It separates rather than unites, causing ever-narrowing divisions as it isolates us through fear and loathing of all who challenge our own truth. God is the embodiment of Truth and unites all who love and obey Him into a growing eternal family. Godliness is evidenced by love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, and other expressions of the highest form of love, which is God Himself. Receiving God’s Truth expressed in Jesus the only begotten son of God who redeemed us from our sin, frees us from selfishness and forms the lovin...

  9/8/2021 Philippians 1:15 [NIV] "It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill." Tribal Christianity was never God’s plan. The Body of Christ limits its ability to serve the Kingdom of Heaven when it gets sidetracked struggling against each other. Yes, Christ is preached, and sinners are reached with the Good News, but at what cost? When we choose to trash talk other believers or cast doubt on their relationship with Christ or their unique approach to the Gospel, we create a fence around our own approach. The enemy uses these barriers to limit our outreach to the lost. The world is filled with a great number of Christian denominations and communities. While this can this be both good and bad, different approaches can reach a greater variety and number of people. I believe this is one of the reasons why Jesus commands us to love one another, because it has a real effect on our witness to the world, for good or ill. The Holy Sp...

  9/1/2021 John 6:29-30 [NIV] Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? God requires us to believe in Him and in the Savior sent to redeem us from our sins, so that we can have a relationship with Him. If our response is “Prove yourself”, we may find we have cut ourselves off from the presence of God. I say ‘may’ because there is no hard and fast rule here: sometimes, God does graciously provide evidence of His love and care to his demanding children. Ancient Israel living in the wilderness found food and water miraculously provided to them. That it was not enough for some is evidence that our demand for evidence of God’s existence will never satisfy us if in our hearts we refuse to believe or trust God. Some will dismiss the miraculous or attribute it to some natural cause, or find some reason to resist God. The problem does not lie with a lack of evidence...

  8/24/2022 Romans 8:35 [NIV] "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" We must not trivialize God’s incomprehensible love for us. It is so easy to do that, in our preoccupation with ourselves. Our needs, our hurts and problems that destroy our peace and joy. If God did not spare his own son, we must not spare ourselves. Because the world does not understand this, and is even offended by it, it does not understand its need for redemption. It is why we must be in the world but not of it, if we are ever to grasp and appreciate what lies ahead for us… all things good and glorious that await the Day of the Lord. Both judgement and reward for all of humankind and the children of God. IF we take God’s love and promises seriously, we will find courage in the face of overwhelming trouble, peace in a world overtaken by the insanity of evil and the wickedness of those determined to cancel ...

  10/30/2021  Matthew 5:43-45 [NIV]      “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous".     So, Jesus, who is my enemy?  This question is suspiciously like the one posed by the Pharisees after hearing the story of the Good Samaritan: ‘Who is my neighbor’?     The teachings of Jesus confuse those who don’t yet have the Mind of Christ.  In order to have His mind, one must believe Jesus is God come in the flesh to die for our sins, AND we are sinners who need to be forgiven.  Only then can we grasp Truth itself.  That doesn’t mean the truth is easy.  We still have our selfish natures—the ‘I Me Mine’ that is the source of all of our anguish on this side of eterni...

  10/25/2021 Ephesians 5:1-2 [NIV] Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. ‘…fragrant offering…’. This phrase always struck me as odd. I know what Paul means, but imagining Christ’s bloody and cruel death by crucifixion to be a fragrant offering hints at something terrible about God, bordering on horror. Terror is the opposite of Horror. They sound like they are both bad, and both are to be feared, but they are not the same. Terror comes from the Light, and Horror comes out of darkness and shadows. We feel terror in the presence of God Almighty and exposed as sinful and unworthy to stand before Him. Horror uses overwhelming fear to paralyze and draw us into darkness and eternal isolation and hopelessness. If the death of Christ served no redeeming purpose, then it is indeed a horror and stench of death. But as an obedient sacrifice to God ...

  9/8/2021 Romans 15:1,7 (NIV) "We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves… Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God." Paul is clever here. “We (I) who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak (you)… “ This passage in Paul’s letter to those who believe in Jesus Christ is directed to the problem of getting the Church to work with a collection of misfits who all have a selfish nature. It is written to the new believers in first century Rome but applies to believers in all cultures throughout the rest of time. Paul of course includes himself in the seventh chapter of this letter. Our selfish natures tend to interpret scriptures to suit ourselves. The Holy Spirit who inspired the letters of Paul will of course work with each believer to sort it all out, but we must face the fact that the ‘I’ becomes the ‘you’ in the verse above as others read it for themselves. (Yes, I am...

  9/4/2021 Genesis 3:22 [NIV] And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” We are infected with the knowledge of Good and Evil. To deny this is to condemn ourselves to destructive ignorance: we will never be able to discern between good and evil and our lives will be filled with the illusion we are good while we embrace death and destruction. It is the doorway we entered when we drew our first breath. The only way out is to go forward with that knowledge and to seek Good above all else, until we die. Death will be the revelation of who we truly are: one who loves Good above all else, or one who loves Self. Self is the will to be our own god; to love ourselves above all else and seek to do what is best for Me. All else serves My perceived best interests, whether it be philosophy, religion, or a false goodness that is in fact, Evil...

  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” [Jesus, on the cross] “I will never leave you or forsake you” [God, in us] No words were ever spoken in such absolute and total despair, as the cry of Jesus Christ on the cross. He began his journey to that moment the night before in the Garden of Gethsemane praying so intently that he sweat great drops of blood: “If it be possible, let this cup pass… Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done”. The weight of our sins brought him to that moment of despair, when the consequences of God the Son carrying our sins caused him to feel separated from God the Father. “He who knew no sin, became sin for us” and we cannot imagine the horror of that moment when the reality Christ felt was completely at odds with the love and truth of the Father whose plan redeemed for all time ‘whosoever will’. Jesus knew that moment was coming, yet yielded his will to the Father and in doing so, broke forever the chains of our sins that keep us separated from Go...

  June 10, 2021 - Habakkuk 1:3,4 [NIV} "Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted." We are moving away from an area that has been devastated by a paralyzing inability to confront sheer madness. Most of the businesses downtown are boarded up after being systematically robbed and damaged by looters and rioters who knew the law would do little or nothing to hold them accountable. Many people in the area feel helpless about changing anything. And now children will be taught in area schools that we are bad people who are responsible for all the wrong in our society for no other reason than the color of our skin. Good and evil are very real. The prophet Habakkuk described the rising insanity in the kingdom of Judah. Judgment was coming in the form of ...

  May 28, 2021 “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” John 4:23-24 [NIV] I think that if Jesus were to tell the parable of the Good Samaritan to today’s Believers, it would be ‘The Good Gay’. While it is not true for all, the aversion Jews and Samaritans felt towards each other was similar to today’s divide between Gays and Christians in general. Jesus set aside several taboos in striking up a conversation with the Woman at the Well, including the one that struck at the heart of their divide: who were the true worshipers of God. The woman tried to get a rise out of Jesus by bringing up the issue of the true place of worship—Mt Gerizim in Samaria where the Children of God first worshiped him in the Promised Land, or the place of Solomon’s original temple in Jerusalem. Jesus...