Knowing God

Jeremiah 24:7 English Standard Version (ESV) 7 I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart. Jesus sent His son, who gave his life, that we might be able to know God, to have relationship with Him. Why do we settle for less? We seem willing to know “about” God. We shun first hand knowledge. Even with His word, we prefer to hear interpretations of what it means, shying away from reading it for ourselves and letting it speak to us directly. We don’t seek His face. We would rather hear from folks who say they have seen His face and get their interpretation of who He is. Man has long had this problem. The children of Israel wanted Moses to go up and get the word from the Lord. They wanted a King. We want an intermediary. We want to forget that the temple curtain was torn and we have direct access. We are comfortable with other men as priests. We are happy sitting in pews and being told about God. As […]

Fifty Shades of Grey

When you think of porn, what images come to mind? Okay, I could have phrased that better. I don’t mean pornographic images. I mean who do you imagine watching or reading porn and where do they get it? Don’t you think of dirty old men or curious teenage boys? Don’t you envision the dark recesses of the internet or slimy book stores on back streets? Not any more. Now porn is sold at Barnes and Noble and to women, even little old ladies. Fifty Shades of Grey is a trilogy containing not just sex but S and M. The “Fifty Shades” books have sold 15 million copies in three months, evenly split between e-readers and paperback as the novels jumped the barrier from the cyber-equivalent of plain brown wrapper to prominent display at your local bookstore. To put this in context, the publisher, Vintage, says it took three years to sell that many copies of the “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” series. The Tattoo series was one of the most popular series of novels ever, until now.You might think that if little old ladies are reading it, it can’t be that racy. And lots of the ladies say they “skim over the […]

Something Different

“Do something different today. Your soul craves variety” Joyce Meyer It’s going to be a strange week. My grandkids are in Florida for TWO weeks. Miss them already. We have a holiday in the middle of the week. On Monday, I’m already looking forward to Wednesday morning when I have an early morning prayer and share, but two of my best friends, Terrell and Gary are out of town, and Wednesday is a holiday. Our Wednesday morning meeting won’t be the same. On Thursday I have an appointment with a new ortho. I like my current guy, but he doesn’t do knee replacements. It’s going to be different. I have been preparing for and doing Kairos for weeks. That’s over. I miss my Kairos family and the men we were called to serve. It’s going to be different. We heard a potential new pastor preach on Sunday. He was great. But I like things the way they are. Things will be different. Maybe I’m just getting old. Different doesn’t have the same draw or excitement that it used to. My God is the same, yesterday, today and forever. I need to remember that each new day brings new challenges […]

Significance

  Significance – Important, having meaning. If we break it all down, our common goal in life is to be significant, to be important, to have a life of meaning. It’s sad that those who choose not to marry designate their “partner” as their “significant” other. This apparently is meant to indicate that the person is important and that the relationship has meaning. The person is apparently not important enough to pledge eternal fidelity to, or to proclaim before God and mankind, but that’s another story. Our search for God is, at it’s essence, a search for confirmation that we are important that our life has meaning. God has placed this need for significance in our hearts. We have a need that, ultimately, can only be filled by relationship with the creator. Our mission, then, is to make others realize their significance. To do that we have to convince them they are important to us before we can show them they are important to God. This idea is at the heart of the Make a Friend, Be a Friend, Bring a Friend to Christ method of evangelism. Significance is important not just in defining our relationship with God or […]

Throw Your Life Away

“Only those who throw away their lives for my sake & the Good News will ever know what it means to really live” Mrk 8:35 LBYesterday the NBA held it’s annual draft. A handful of young men have achieved the dream of thousands to play basketball professionally. Glance at the sports page or ESPN and you will see pics of foolish smiles wearing caps of the teams that have selected the wearers. Having it all in your early twenties. Yet we all know that many of these young men will end up miserable, even penny less or destitute. They will “throw away” what appears to be an unbelievable opportunity. We will shake our heads in disgust when we hear how these lives turn out. Yet most of us will do even worse. Throwing away an even greater opportunity.Haven’t you heard the advice: “Don’t throw your life away.” Sometimes it’s given by a parent to a child who is wanting to marry an “undesirable” or make an unconventional vocation choice. Maybe it’s confided to someone too attached to a vice like drugs or unsavory friends. But Jesus says it’s the only way to live. Most of us as we grow older […]

I Never Knew You

Matthew 7:21-23 English Standard Version (ESV) 21  says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22  many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23  never knew you; you workers of lawlessness.’ There are lots of encouraging verses in scripture. We like to memorize them and post them on our Facebook pages. This isn’t one of them. This one is frightening and disturbing. It raises the possibility that we might not be as secure in our relationship with Jesus as we would like to believe. It causes us to ask if we really “know” him. I am a great fan of Tim Tebow. I have followed his career for years as a Gator, a Bronco and now a Jet. I feel like I “know” him. But I’ve never met him and if you asked him he would certainly not know me. Some of us are like that with Jesus. We know ABOUT Him but we don’t know Him. That kind of knowledge is certainly no sufficient to gain us entry into heaven. To really know someone we have to spend time with them. We all need […]

Fear – Robber of Life

I had a urology workup yesterday. It was painful but endurable. The results were fine. No real problems. I had known I needed the tests for a couple of weeks and I had been fearful of both the tests and the potential results.  I wasted much time and energy in those days in fear. Noticed I said “fear” not “nervous” or “anxious” or “apprehensive.” That was very brave of me. Those are the words we  use when we are fear people will think less of us because we fear. Isn’t that ridculous. Fear is a universal condition.  Jesus was wise. He repeatedly advised His disciples not to fear. They still ran like scared rabbits when his torturers showed up with torches in the night. We like to think that after the Holy Spirit fell they became fearless. That’s probably not true. At least not right away. In the years that followed they went to foreign lands, they were whipped, ridiculed, tortured and killed. I gotta think they were sometimes afraid. But they did it anyway. After the first couple of times, they were less fearful. They learned that God was with them and it wasn’t as bad as they feared. The […]