Sheep Food

  So are we as a country…under God’s ‘judgment’? Many today would suggest that, or at least heading in that direction. And if we are, what does God’s ‘judgment’ even look like? Is it possible that God has ‘allowed’ the ‘enemy to come in like a flood’, as Isaiah 59:19 describes it? And who is our ‘enemy’? Is it the flood of illegal immigrants who have snuck into our country? Or maybe its the growing tide of Muslims who practice Islam and are to many, ‘overstepping their bounds’ by building mosques and getting involved with local and national politics. Both groups seem to many... to pose a threat to our ‘way of life’ here in America, and many are raising up their voices of concern in opposition to them being here. So today, let me give you the benefit of the doubt and go along with this idea that both groups of people whom we have looked at the past few days…are indeed an ‘enemy’ (or at least a threat) to this country and our way of life as we know it. Were you aware that we h...

  There is a story that has gone ‘viral’ this past week that has its origins here in San Francisco at a local Giants baseball game; perhaps you’ve seen it? During the game broadcast, the TV cameras cut away to a woman who was making her way back to her seat, carrying a load of concession food with her daughter strapped to her as well. She seems to be maneuvering her way through the seats where her husband takes the food from her, but doesn’t seem to be overly helpful in helping her get settled in. The TV broadcasters then unload on this guy, and from there…the story takes off across social media platforms as people weigh in and continue the dog piling as they unload on this dude for being a pathetic excuse for a man. Days later, the wife/mom responds…to set the record straight and it is the perfect example as to how ignorant humans can be in their rush to judgment based on what little they know, see, or hear. (I’ll post a link to the story below in the comments if you care to ...

  There is an interesting backstory to the photo I posted here today to go along with my message. It was taken by me in the summer of 2014 while Kathy and I were down in Big Bend, TX. We had made the trek down that way in June for a few days to visit the area for our first time. We both remember clearly, the drive through some very inhospitable terrain, during the summer heat, and what we were talking about in the car that day while driving. That was the year there had been a huge surge in undocumented children…showing up at the southern border, many who had made the trip up from central America. What was hard to fathom was the fact that most of them were unaccompanied by adults, and somehow had survived walking through hundreds of miles of the very kind of terrain we were driving in at the time. I still remember Kathy and I discussing this very thing as we drove to Big Bend. How did these kids get here…and survive? Who…or what…brought them here? This humanitarian crisis domin...

  Dear Fellow Christians, I don’t want to sound like an alarmist, but it might be a wise idea to tap the brakes on the path we claim to be walking on these days, and do a little ‘heart check’ …as we are admonished to do in 2 Cor. 13:5. I would like to direct your attention to Luke 10, where a ‘certain lawyer stood up to test Jesus, asking Him: “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (25) Jesus immediately directed this man to the ‘law’, asking him what his take was on it. (26). Being a lawyer, he did a good job summing it up with how we are commanded to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength…and to love our neighbor as ourself. (27) Jesus commended him on his response, affirming him of his understanding of the 'law', then adding…(which we should all take note of): “You have answered correctly; do this…and you will live.” (28) The lawyer was not finished, as we are told he wanted to ‘justify himself’…which is interesting.  So he asked Jesus: “Who is ...

  In case it has not been brought to your attention yet, let me be the first to inform you that God has this unwavering way about repeating Himself, over and over and over; and for good reason. We ‘believers’ would do well to sit up and take notice, because we tend to be slow at times at 'getting it'. Do you know what the one area is that God makes it a point to keep repeating Himself? It might surprise you…especially since the ‘church’ (His ‘supposed’ body) places little emphasis on this one thing. Let me lay it out for you this way today, and see if it doesn’t resonate and ‘connect a few more dots’ for us all. It has to do with ‘keeping His commandments’. What our Bible teaches: “Oh, that they has such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep ALL My commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever.” (Deut. 5:29,33) [you might just read through chapters 5-11 when you have time and see how often this theme is stressed] “I believ...

  If you’ve not experienced this ‘bell-ringing milestone’ yourself… you probably know someone personally who has. I’ve known several over the years. It marks the end of what can be grueling treatments to rid the body of any and all cancer cells. But it’s the results of the PET-CT scan that every patient and their family members anxiously await for, because that’s when they receive the news that the treatments worked and they are now ‘cancer free’. If a cancer patient undergoes major or radical surgery to remove cancerous organs or body parts…one of the first pieces of news you want to hear when coming out of surgery is to be told by a confident doctor… that they ‘got it all’. Being told that they ‘got most of it’…or to be informed that despite surgery and follow up chemo or radiation treatments that there were still ‘some’ cancer cells detected in your blood work…would not be a source of great comfort to anyone. Care to guess why that might be?  I’m no expert at this but we...

  Here is an over-simplified picture of what I have spent the past five years trying to convey from all these Bible lessons with plenty of scripture included to support what I share. God set a law in place which He expects to be obeyed, and it can best be summed up like this: We are either going to surrender to His Lordship and allow Him to replicate His divine nature in us so that we can manifest His love to the world…or we will be destroyed. I don’t know that I could make it any plainer than that. We are told that God is ‘long-suffering’ towards us, ‘not wanting any to perish but for all to come to repentance’ (2 Pet. 3:9). It is His desire for “all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Ti. 2:4) And ‘unless we repent…we will all likewise…perish’. – Jesus (Luke 13:3,5). Oh, and here’s a news-flash in case anyone forgot this little nugget of truth taught by Jesus: He gave us a ‘new commandment, that we love one another as He loved us’…and…’by this will all...

  The apostle Paul wrote: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law…having become a curse for us…” (Col. 3:13). Before you go and pop the cork on that bottle of champagne upon hearing this news regarding what Christ did…may I challenge you to take a moment to consider this: who was Paul referring to there when he mentions….'us'? Who are the ones that are actually included in that great news…about being ‘redeemed from the curse’? I only do that because we know how easy it is for people to ‘jump to conclusions’ when they read various scriptures and just automatically ‘assume’…it applies to them, especially when it comes to being on the receiving end of blessings and/or good news. How many people are we told in Matt. 7:22 will ‘come in that day’…when they stand before God and just presume they are ‘in’ as they list all those glorious works they did in ‘His name’, only to discover that Jesus ‘never knew them’? (Matt. 7:23) And how many people did Jesus imply would be on th...

  Those who are followers of Jesus have been instructed (commanded actually) to deal with their ‘old man’…or their sinful flesh nature in the most severe way: as in put it to death! (Col. 3:5-9) We were not advised to consider ‘dialing it down, putting it on a leash, or in a cage’. We were told it ‘must die’…and stay dead. And those who truly belong to Jesus and hear His voice and follow Him (John 10:27)…have done this very thing. They 'have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Gal. 5:24). Did you notice that is written as ‘past tense’? We are told by Jesus that ‘not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of His Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. 7:21). We also learn in scripture that it is those who are ‘led by His Spirit’ that are the true ‘children of God’ (Rom. 8:14). We learn that those who ‘walk in the Spirit will NOT fulfill the lusts of the flesh (nature), since they are contrary to one another (Gal. 5...

  “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” – Jesus (Matt. 7:21) “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified (put to death) the flesh with its passions and desires.” – Paul (Gal. 5:24) Try as you may (and many have)…you just can’t conveniently toss those statements aside as if they ‘don’t apply to us today’. They were written down in our Bibles for a purpose; and if for no other reason…hopefully to get our attention and prompt us to dive deeper into God’s word to gain more clarification and understanding. Do you know what I have come to learn over the years? When people are taught to believe a false doctrine… it has this eerie effect on sincere believers where they can be quick to dismiss other scriptures that don’t ‘fit’ with what they have been taught to believe. Remember - most deception will have a thread of truth interwoven through it…which is what makes false teachings so deceptive. ...

  If you’ve been around church teachings for any length of time, you probably are familiar with the words of lament that Paul expressed in Romans 7, talking about how he agrees that God’s law is good, but also recognizes that within his own self (his flesh)… there is ‘no good thing’. We read in those passages (13-21) how he seems to ‘want to do good…but he does not’, and that the ‘evil he doesn’t want to do…he does’…because of the ‘indwelling sin that is in him.’ I only say we are familiar with those words because that is how many people are made to feel better about themselves and their ongoing sin problem…because if Paul continued to live as a ‘sinner’, who were we to think we could do any better? There’s just one problem with that ‘spin’ on scripture- Paul was NOT suggesting that we will continue to live as sinners ‘saved by grace’ as many presume, or that he did himself. Paul was merely expressing rather well, the conflict we all find ourselves in when we hear ‘the law’, an...

  There really is no getting around the fact that God seems to lay down some pretty lofty and demanding expectations for us to comply with…if we have any hopes or longing to spend eternity with Him. I would even call them ‘unrealistic requirements’. I mean, really…listen to some of these familiar phrases we have read in scripture: “Go and sin no more.” (John 5:14; 8:11). “Be Holy in all your conduct, for I am holy…” (1 Pet. 1:15-16) “Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matt.5:48) “I give you this commandment to love others as I have loved you.” (John 15:12; 13:34) And let’s not forget those reminders that despite whatever impressive ‘works for God’ we may do and accomplish over the span of our lives, if we have not been perfected in His love, then all of our works are for ‘naught’, and profit us nothing. If we learn nothing else from Matt. 7:21-23 and 1 Cor. 13:1-8, it should be this. Didn’t Jesus say in multiple places that we cannot be His disciple unless we are w...