Author: Nick

Luke 8:40-56 New International Version (NIV) Jesus Raises a Dead Girl and Heals a Sick Woman  40 Now when Jesus returned, a crowd welcomed him, for they were all expecting him. 41 Then a man named Jairus, a synagogue leader, came and fell at Jesus’ feet, pleading with him to come to his house 42 because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying.    As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. 43 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years,

I’m fond of ending my correspondence with “Be Blessed.” I like that as a greeting as well. It’s even become a kind of code word among Christians. But I’m thinking that maybe I need to modify it. After all, we are blessed. That’s not in dispute. The real issue is do we realize we are blessed. For me, I feel blessed sometimes, but lot’s of times…not so much.  I find it good periodically to review my blessings. Here are just some: 1. Friends. Friends are those people you can tell anything and they can do the same to you. Your blessings are multiplied if your friends include your family and you’re over the top if you can count your spouse as a friend. I can. I’m blessed. 2. The world. I know to us Christians, the world, is a bad word. But I’m talking about the beauty of His creation. How can you walk about the last few days in this gorgeous weather and not be overcome with a feeling of blessing. 3. Your capabilities. You can’t do everything, but you can do something. With a painful knee recently it has been easy to focus on what I can’t […]

This week I had an adventure. It didn’t involve travel or danger. It didn’t happen in a far away place. It occurred in my own home. I cleaned out my office. If you’ve never seen my office you can’t fully appreciate this adventure. My office had become so clutter and disorganized, so much more a store room than an office, that the thought of entry kept me away. But armed with determination and Tyler, an energetic twenty something, the adventure began. In a couple of hours we had piled together enough throw aways to fill the bed of two pickups. Just getting rid of stuff that should have been thrown out years ago was refreshing. But the real excitement came in discovering stuff I had forgotten I had. I found a Lafayette phone directory from 1954. That alone could provide a day of adventure. I found enough folders, envelopes, paper clips, etc that I won’t have to go to Office Depot again, ever. Well maybe that’s over the top. I also found marvelous electronic devices that were disturbingly out of date. A hand held GPS that I thought was so cool when I got it, an electronic bible, a […]

This week we’ve considered spiritual warfare. We’ve determined that there are spirits, good and bad. Satan exists; but he’s not as powerful as God. In the end, we win. We know that there is a war going on. We try to understand that  much of what we see on the natural level is the result of what is being played out in the spirit realm.” For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12.  We are called to participate in this war. We have a place. “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” So where do we start? How do we enlist? How do we get into the game? PRAY. I know that we think of prayer as a sideline activity. We think that’s something the spectator does while sitting on the sideline. Maybe that’s because we don’t understand prayer. We still think of prayer as words we say or petitions we make. Sadly that’s often the extend of our prayer […]

I remember the first time I heard the term “Spiritual Warfare.” I had visions of extremists, nuts, snake handlers and… well you get the picture. Even as the years of my spiritual walk passed I still considered Spiritual Warfare the work of specialists, kind of the Seal Teams of Christianity. I thought that “Soldiers of Christ” was a term to be applied to a small group of super Christians and not the the body in general. As has so often been the case in my life, I was wrong. Let me suggest this. Pick a gospel. Let’s say Luke. I pick Luke because he was a physician, a man of science. You would think he would not get too caught up in the spirit realm. Let’s see: Chapter 1: He talks about Zacharias being filled with the Holy SPIRIT. Christ’s birth being announced by an ANGEL. Elizabeth being filled with the Holy SPIRIT. Zacharias prophesizing in the SPIRIT. Moving to Chapter 2: ANGELS appear and announce the birth of the savior. The HOLY SPIRIT fulfills a promise to Simeon. Chapter 3: John Baptizes Jesus and the HOLY SPIRIT descends on him in bodily form like a DOVE. Chapter 4: Starts […]

I grew up in a big family, the oldest of nine. We were close, the kind of closeness that only poverty can create. When I say we didn’t own a car until I was in high school, I get one of those yes-and-you-walked-ten-miles-to-school looks. I remember carefully studying and analyzing the Sears Big Book in the weeks before Christmas preparing for that all important decision: what one gift could I get this year. Sharing ideas with brothers and sisters. It didn’t matter that what looked so good on the glossy well-worn Big Book page, didn’t quite match up by late on Christmas day.  Our family is still, what you might consider, close. Although many I see but once a year. I keep up with many of them either because they’re on Facebook or, in the case of my baby brother, we share a passion for UL sports. It’s always good when I’m with one of them and the days of growing up together, days that were somehow better, don’t seem that far away. I think we’ve lost the sense of family. I see a generation whose concept of family is too loose and too complicated. Divorce, separation, and non-marrying […]

[14] And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying,[15] “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.[16] “So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him.”[17] Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.”[18] And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour.[19] Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?”[20] So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.[21] “However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” Matthew 17:14-21 A couple of days ago my wife asked me, “Is that knee getting any better?” It was a rhetorical question. I was hobbling around pretty […]

Jesus Restores a Demon-Possessed Man  26 They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes,