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  Have you ever been driving in the car with someone after you had a spicy meal, maybe heavy on the garlic or onions...and out of nowhere you can feel it rising up within you...a fully loaded ‘silent burp’. You do your best to muffle it but there is no containing or holding back the horrific ‘scent’ it delivers as it wafts across your tongue and lips and begins to fill the car. I have actually rolled my window down at times and tried to exhale that odor as if it was a puff of smoke from a cigarette...and with little success. Breath mints or chewing gum do little to mask what is clearly there. Do you know why that is? Because it was in you...and it came out of you; and if you want to alleviate that problem, you best lay off the spicy foods, at least if you are going to be in an enclosed room or car with someone shortly after...and you are prone to burping. The same could be said about ‘sin’ and those ‘evident deeds of the flesh nature’. Jesus spoke to this in Mark 7:18-23, even...
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  God’s plan for His people, after He set them free and led them out of Egypt... was never to have them settle down and to live in the ‘wilderness’. The wilderness was simply a place they were going to pass through on the way to the promised land. Most historians and students of this account agree that the journey from the Red Sea to Canaan land should have taken, at best...11-14 days. But as you probably know, they wandered for 40 years, with nearly all of that first generation dying out there (Heb. 3:17; 1 Cor. 10:5). I would submit to you that even today, there are way too many people who profess the name of Christ...who live far short of the desired place God has for them (Hosea 4:6). Do you even know what the purpose for the ‘wilderness’ was? Take a look at Deut. 8:2 – “And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or ...
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  It has been a part of my personal testimony regarding how I first came to Jesus, which I have always delighted in sharing with anyone who was curious to hear, because it demonstrates the manner in how the Holy Spirit begins to lovingly deal with us after we have committed to yield our hearts/lives to the Lord. I was barely twenty years old living out in Arizona trying to make sense of a very confusing world at that time in my life, desperately in need of direction...but unsure where to find it. ‘Trusting my gut’ seemed like a risky dice roll when it came to mapping out my life and I was needing something a little more reassuring. Hence, my being ‘ripe and ready’ to consider drawing close to God and seeking His guidance. I remember thinking to myself at the time, having been ‘raised in church’ yet void of a serious relationship with God other than having a generic ‘belief’ in Him...that if I could not trust Jesus with my life...then who could I trust? So it was in the early spr...
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  The Israelites had no problem when it came to hearing God’s voice or knowing His will. It was the following through in ‘doing it’ that always tripped them up. You might want to go back and read that one more time, nice and slow, even aloud perhaps. If you don’t think that reference to the Israelites back in the OT of our Bibles has any relevance to us NT ‘believers’ today, you might want to go revisit 1 Cor. 10:1-12 and Hebrews 3-4. Paul takes a bit of time there reminding the church at Corinth how God dealt with their forefathers back when they came out of Egypt and were led into the wilderness. We are told that “God was not well pleased with them for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.” (5) As you read on there, you’ll notice that Paul lists several specific examples as to why God was not pleased with them and the ensuing consequences these people experienced. Interestingly, those events are sandwiched in between vs. 6 and 11 which reminds us that these are ‘examp...
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  Followers of Jesus don’t center their walks around following a list of rules, commandments or ‘do and don’t do’ lists. Children of God are ‘led by His Spirit’ (Romans 8:14), which infers they not only ‘hear His voice’...but they ‘follow Him’ as well (John 10:27). Peter refers to them as ‘obedient children’ (1 Pet. 1:14-17) If you are uncertain as to whether you even know or recognize His voice...well, that might be part of the problem that would explain why your walk may have been a struggle for some time now. And I don’t say that with any hint of condescension or condemnation either. You are probably not alone given how many of us were taught to trust and rely on ‘doctrines’ and ‘clichés’ and ‘comforting sayings’ that don’t always line up with God’s word. It happens. (Mark 7:8-9,13). Did you catch my post on ‘spatial disorientation’ from the other day? Lots of folks are wired in such a way that they desperately need and ask for a ‘list’, a set of ‘rules’ that they can follow...
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  “Oh wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:24) That’s the lament the apostle Paul expresses in that well-read, but often misunderstood passage we all like to point to in order to justify why we continue to live as ‘sinners saved by grace’. Yep...better read yesterday’s message first if you missed it. To hear the plethora of modern day ‘gospels’ explain it...Jesus came to earth some 2000 years ago to ‘make a payment...for all past, present and future sins’, then He hands everyone who ‘accepts Him as personal Savior’ a ‘get out of jail for free’ card so they can go to heaven after they die. Oh...it would help some if you join a local church and read your Bible on a regular basis; but this idea of being set free to ‘go and sin no more’? - Sorry...He was just kidding and got caught up in the moment and didn’t really mean that. And the amount of people today who have basically been presented with such a ‘gospel’ is staggering. No wonder Jesus w...
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  What if we have all been wrong when it comes to our understanding on this false premise that the apostle Paul continued... to live as a struggling ‘sinner’, or as in his words...as the ‘worst’ or ‘chief’ of sinners? Just hear me out on this as I circle back once again and address this grossly misleading notion that the one who wrote nearly two thirds of the New Testament...continued to struggle with overcoming sin. There are two specific passages that we’ve always been taught and reminded of when it comes to Paul’s writings and his ‘apparent admission’, and they are found in Romans 7:13-25 and 1 Timothy 1:15. And let’s be honest here - if this notorious converted Pharisee who was once imprisoning and overseeing the execution of new Christians back in the early days of the church’s inception...continued to live as a ‘sinner saved by grace’, who are we to think we could fare any better and actually ‘go and sin no more’? I mean, this talk about ‘those who abide in Jesus no longer si...
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