Sheep Food

  Admittedly, it is one of my favorite analogies to use and point to. I’ve used it more than once over the past year or so in my writings here. Allow me if you will please, to share it once again.   It’s the one about the old man who lived ‘off the grid’ in the back woods. He cut all his firewood with an old bow saw he had owned for years. One day, the thing just crumpled and broke so he made his way in to town to replace it. The salesman at the hardware store convinced him to purchase a power chain saw to which the old man agreed to try.   Three days later he drove back and stormed into that store, sought out the salesman and angrily demanded a refund. The confused employee inquired as to what was wrong with it and when told it was worthless, he took the chainsaw from the elderly man, flipped a switch and pulled the cord which caused the engine to rev up loudly as the blade began to spin around the chain-bar.   The old man jumped back immediately...

  That word picture I used yesterday...about becoming a ‘fish’, or a ‘new creation’ which would make it possible for one to exist and thrive underwater...yeah...that one works well for me. I hope it helped convey to you as well similar thoughts and understanding. That essentially...is what has to happen to us if we are going to ever be able to fulfill the great command and love others as Christ loved us. (John 13:34-45) We have to become a new creation.   How on earth...could we ever live this out and walk like Jesus walked...and love like Jesus loved us...if...we don’t have His nature residing in us? We certainly were not born the first time resembling Him. ( I bet that got the nurses in the delivery room whispering) Maybe that is why we need to be....’born again’?   Otherwise, it would be impossible. We simply cannot be ‘like Him’ unless His nature lives and dwells in us. And as I made the case for yesterday, simply confessing that He is in you does no...

  So exactly what could it mean when we are told that IF....a person is actually “In Christ”...that they are truly a ‘new creation’. We discussed this some the other day. A ‘new creation’...for real?   We’ve heard all those cute illustrations about ‘putting lipstick on a pig’ or ‘if it quacks like a duck’, etc. Surely we all know the difference between a cheap make-over and a genuine ‘new’ product.   Just because we ‘say it’s something’...does not mean it is so. Even if you say it over and over and over and go as far as to put music to it. (I’m thinking of an old song we used to sing in church about being a new creation)   IF....anyone is IN Christ....he is...a new creation. IF.   I have to wonder....how many sincere believing church members have been told over and over and over for years...that they are ...a ‘new creation’ and yet...some nagging question inside them keeps asking...”then why don’t I genuinely feel or sense it?” Or more i...

  I bet you know what the shortest verse in the bible is, yes?   Correct: “Jesus wept”. It’s found in John 11:35. He was standing at the graveside of his friend, Lazarus who had died just a few days prior to Jesus’s arrival there. You might say His arrival was ‘delayed’ given news had been delivered to Jesus and the disciples earlier of Lazarus falling sick and requesting that He come.   “So when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was.” (6)   I’m willing to bet that had it been you or I being asked to come in this situation...we’d dropped what we were doing and left immediately. But Jesus didn’t.   In fact, we will read a few chapters later in that same gospel where Jesus mentions that He only does what the Father tells Him to do so that the world will come to understand that He loves the Father. (John 14:31). You know, sort of like when Jesus said...”IF you love Me, you will do what I ask of you”?...

  Could you take a moment and consider this statement: –   “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” ( 2 Cor 5:17)   There’s an old saying that says ‘familiarity breeds contempt’. I know this has happened to me more times than I can count over the years and I bet it has with you as well if you are a student and/or lover of God’s word…You quote passages…memorize them, study them, highlight them and maybe even ‘sing and pray’ them.   Then one day…it’s as if God removes scales from your eyes and then you …’see’ the truth of that word.   What do we read there in Luke 24:32 and 45…where Jesus “opened the Scriptures to them” and “He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.” You might also reference Acts 16:14 as well.   It’s important to be reminded of this repeatedly because sometimes we lose sight of the fact that this book ...

  I’ve taken long trips before in the car like most of us have. On occasion, I might have missed an exit and discovered sometime later that I was not on the right road and was headed in the wrong direction. (Or should I say not heading in the right direction?). This would have been prior to the days of GPS-maps where that voice starts telling you to ‘Reroute-Reroute!”   When I discovered I missed that turn, I won’t lie...it would irritate me to no end. I hate having to backtrack. But never once...did I pull over, stop the car and proceed to scream and cry and berate myself before jumping out in front of an 18-wheeler to end my life. (Had I done that, I would not be here today writing this obviously lol)   I just make the course correction and proceeded on to my destination while maybe muttering some choice words in kicking myself for my inattentiveness.   This happens to us spiritually as well. We get diverted. We drift and veer off course. Some...

  It was a simple question, or so I thought.   I was reading sometime back where Jesus made this statement: “Most assuredly, I say unto you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin, and a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. (John 8:34-35)   Just prior to that statement, He said “And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” (32)   Then He followed up with this line: “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” (36)   Thinking aloud, I suppose...I recognized the fact that probably most, if not all sincere believing ‘Christians’ would admit they continue to sin on a regular basis. I hear preachers tell their congregations that they will do so as if it is no big deal; maybe not as ‘bad’ as they did prior to ‘coming to Jesus’, but still sinning nonetheless. And most will tell you that ‘on this side of heaven, we will always continue to sin’. Yet...Jesus said...”Most assuredly,...