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  I’m not sure how you did with yesterday’s message, the one about the need to ‘examine ourselves’…but after I posted it I could hear an accusatory voice whisper to me “You’re making this too hard on people.” And it wasn’t God speaking to me. I was then reminded of that passage in John 6, where after Jesus had shared some deep truths with those in His audience, we are told that “many of His disciples, when they heard this said, ‘this is a hard saying, who can accept it’?” (60). These weren’t just peripheral followers waiting for the next miracle of fishes and loaves to fill their bellies either. They were ‘disciples’, or as many folks today would call them: ‘saved folks’. And Jesus knew in Himself that what He was telling them was not being well received (61). But He didn’t modify or dilute or back off from His message so as to appease the disgruntled group who were now second guessing what they had signed on for with this ‘following Jesus’ journey. Jesus was not one to tell pe...
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  So you read yesterday’s message and found yourself asking what the condition of your own ‘pump’ was in; and that’s not a bad thing to do. (2 Cor. 13:5) There are probably different ways of having it checked out, but let me share with you a statement I have heard on more than one occasion by people who I would tell you are ‘sincere believers’; and this might be a legitimate ‘marker’ of something being amiss in your own pump (spiritual heart). Over these past six years, this journey I have been on has had multiple markers, or what I would call ‘defining moments’, where tremendous lessons of truth were impressed upon me. I could write a book on those moments alone. But along the way, I’ve had many interesting conversations with multiple believers as I have tried to share with them what happened to me, and what I have come to discover from God’s word. This is the statement I have heard roll off the lips of those individuals: “I believe abiding in Jesus is important, but if I’m bein...
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  “They always go astray in their hearts, and they have not known my ways.” – God (Heb. 3:10; Ps. 95:10) Who might be ‘they’ He speaks of there? That would be ‘His people’ who often find themselves in unfortunate predicaments due to ‘bad intel’ (Hosea 4:6) There’s an interesting statement recorded in Deut. 2:3, where God told Moses: “You’ve been circling this mountain long enough; it’s time to turn northward.” You know…40 years is a long time to wander in a place that was never intended to be your place of settlement; especially in a land or region that was as inhospitable as the wilderness, the place Moses led God’s people through after their deliverance from the land of Egypt where they had lived as slaves for hundreds of years. If that 'circling the same mountain'... doesn’t describe the walk of many sincere Christians today who have continued to battle with sins (and their consequences) that ‘war against their soul’, I don’t know what does. Years ago, we owned an ’87 GM...
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  Allow me to once again to refer to a quote by C.S. Lewis, where he writes: "There are two equal and opposite errors into which our (human) race can fall into when it comes to devils/demons. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.” I do not go about from day to day with my mind affixed on ‘unclean spirits’. Nor is my day consumed with trying to keep a list of rules and commands in order to ‘not sin’. Abiding in Jesus is not like walking down a sidewalk as you try to avoid stepping on a crack (not wanting to break your mother’s back-IYKY). Children of God have been called to ‘abide in Him’, and to walk in His peace, not to mention 'as He walked' (1 John 2:6). Can I tell you how much easier it is to just have your mind set on Him, and things above? (John 15:1-5; Col. 3:2; Luke 1:79; Col. 4:7; Isa. 26:3; Matt. 11:28-30). And ‘if’ you sin…He’ll let you know about it; trust me - You lose that...
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  It is one of the more profound questions found in our Bibles, and it is directed to ‘Christians’: “If we are dead to sin, how can we go on sinning?” (Rom. 6:2 CEV) The emphasis there should be on that first, 2-letter word ‘if’. Can I just tell you upfront that Romans 6 is one of those chapters that has an incredible amount of ‘truth’ buried beneath the surface there, and is one of those chapters that if you will spend time going over it repeatedly until it ‘clicks’…it can be life changing. (Luke 24:32,45) Paul is laying the groundwork there with the hopes we will come to see that every one of us can be set free and walk in the newness of life…’having died to sin’, and that the ‘body of sin might be done away with’…once and for all. He talks about how we are ‘no longer slaves to sin…having been set free from sin’ and that we ‘were’ at one time ‘slaves to sin’. So the question remains then…’why do so many continue to ‘sin’? And if one does, what did Jesus say that makes them, i...
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  Two common mistakes that Christians tend to make when it comes to sharing our faith and explaining the gospel is this: We can easily complicate simple truths, or we try to over-simplify complex truths. It happens all the time. Having stated that…I want to share some thoughts here today that I have shared in the past; but the last thing I want to do is oversimplify a valuable lesson and come across like I’m presenting a ‘How To’ manual on how we actually ‘put to death…the deeds of the flesh’. I’m not here to offer ‘spiritual formulas’; rather…share more scripture and liberating truths that I have come to not only learn myself…but even more importantly…experienced myself. Truth be told…I can honestly say now that I’ve been around ‘long enough’ to have learned a few things…and seen even more. I will also say that you will never hear me profess that I have it ‘all figured out’; but gosh…what little I have come to learn has been life transforming for me. Something else I have witness...
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  Here’s a *News Flash* for all those who may have not read the rest of the ‘memo’: God did not just send Jesus to pay off our ‘debt of sin’ by forgiving us of our sins; He came to set all men free from sin where they could actually ‘go and sin no more’ (John 5:14; 8:11; 1 John 5:18). I mean really…what’s the point in sending a plumber and clean-up crew to remove all the standing sewage that has spilled into your yard…if the broken pipe that lead to the stinking mess is not repaired? Yeah…go read that one more time, aloud. That passage in John’s gospel that ‘sparked’ these blog posts nearly five years ago is quite an indictment made by Jesus: “I tell you most assuredly: whoever commits sin is a slave to sin” (8:34). That’s the same passage where He was promising those in His audience that they could know the truth and the truth would set them free (32). And what was the first thing out of the mouths/hearts of those who heard this? “Oh…we’ve never been in bondage to anyone, so ho...
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