Sheep Food

  As I mentioned yesterday, today’s post is going to be a challenging one for many of you to read and process, let alone receive. But it needs to be shared and I’m totally comfortable with doing so here. All I ask is that you approach this with an open heart and mind, and even more importantly...an open Bible. Take notes. Search the scriptures to see if what I am sharing lines up with the word or not. (Acts 17:11 ). I have nothing to prove to anyone nor do I have any other agenda but pleasing the One who first loved me. (1 John 4:19) I mentioned in closing yesterday how the early days of my ‘coming to Jesus’ was marked by such a strong presence of Him teaching me to learn His voice, and then follow. You can call this ‘abiding in Him’. (John 10:27; 15:1-8). And was I ever seeing God move in my life in incredible ways as I have shared recently with you all. Jesus kind of has this ‘thing’ when it comes to working with, in, and through His new ‘babes’. (Luke 10:17-21; Mark 16:20...

  “ For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The LORD will give grace and glory; No good thing will He withhold From those who walk uprightly.” (Psalm 84:11) “Seek ye first the kingdom of God...and HIS righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matt. 6:33) Those two passages above have truly been pivotal promises that I’ve seen God honor in my life in HUGE ways over the years. The second one coming to life when I put God first early on and was willing to end a very dear relationship at the time If... that was His will. (Yesterday’s post). I do believe we can have those “Abraham-Isaac” moments when God will indeed test our hearts to make sure He has all of it, first and foremost. This faith walk just doesn't work well if we don’t love Him with ALL our hearts and surrender it all to Him. Have you ever had a car in desperate need of a front end alignment? The longer you wait, the quicker those costly tires will wear out. So it is with our hearts when they are not pe...

  “Keep your eyes on the road, with both hands on the wheel and stay in your own lane.” Those are just a few of the most basic and essential lessons to safe driving...if you want to arrive at your destination in one piece. Oh, and staying vigilant and alert goes a long way in keeping you alive as well. And if you break the laws and do dumb stuff, there will be consequences. Costly traffic tickets can be painful to pay if you have never experienced that. We sure teach and engrain those lessons to our student drivers. Why don’t we do a better job of teaching new ‘babes in Christ’ the same lessons when it comes to abiding in or with Christ? That really is what learning to abide in Jesus is all about- keeping your eyes on Him (Col. 2:2) ...staying vigilant and alert (1 Pet. 5:8) and for goodness sakes...pay attention to the road as you stay in your lane, given how narrow it is! (Matt 7:13-14). You know as well as I do what happens when you ‘drift’ out of your lane – you hit those...

  So the very first significant lesson I was taught within 24 hours of ‘surrendering my life to the Lord’ made a rather impactful impression on me for sure. It actually came on the heels within 8 hours of my offering up that prayer asking the Lord to come in to my life. (Yesterday’s post) I was a brand new ‘babe in Christ’ and God chose to introduce me to the ‘real world’ in which I lived; and it was spiritual in nature. If I can be more direct, the lesson that was ‘revealed’ to me was the fact there were ‘spiritual forces’ very much at play in this world and in my life and I would do well to take heed and pay attention. And sitting up and paying attention I did. But I did not learn this ‘lesson’ from reading a stack of books and commentaries written by intellectuals and educated folks. The Holy Spirit ‘revealed’ this to me through a very real, yet ‘controlled’ encounter. Jesus does that, you know...with His ‘babes’...He reveals the mysteries to His kingdom to those who come...

  I cannot tell you the exact day it happened because I did not write it down anywhere. I do remember the approximate time though, only because I had to be at work to clock in at 4PM so it probably occurred about an hour before. But the moment itself...I will never forget; mainly because it was very anti-climatic. It was the day I sat up in the front of my foreman’s pickup truck on 35th Ave and Van Bueren in Phoenix, AZ and prayed as I ‘gave my life to the Lord’. I can assure you that I really had no idea what I was in store for or what I had just signed on for, but I can remember being a bit hopeful that God heard my prayer. We were in the parking lot of a diner, a Denny’s perhaps? Oh...and it happened 44 years ago about this time of the year. I had recently turned 20 and like so many other 20-year-old’s, I was floundering, trying to find my place in this world. I had decided to take a year off after completing my first year of college at Arizona St and was working a union j...

  It can be a messy and uncomfortable topic to discuss....I know. But honestly, it’s not addressed enough- this issue of ‘sin’. Sin is killing us. That is what ‘sin’ does: it brings forth death. (Rom. 3:23; Ezek. 18:20). Why do you think the ‘thief’ tempts you to sin all the time? And we know what he’s all about...he comes to ‘steal, kill, and destroy’. (John 10:10) And what was our condition when we continued to live in sin according to Eph 2:1? What is truly tragic ironic though, is the One who brought the ‘cure’ for sin, has for the most part, been pushed aside, and the very ‘body’ that was called to represent Him and declare and preach His message, has become the great pacifying enabler. - “God understand you are a pitiful, wretched sinner and He still loves you and knows you will always be a sinner.” ( “He gets you!” – too soon?) Do you think it’s possible that God’s message got hijacked somewhere along the way? I mean, that would not be the first time that has happened, ...

  IF Jesus has truly set us free from sin, then I suppose the question we should be examining is this: “Why does one continue to ....sin?” (John 8:34-35; Rom. 8:17-18) You might be quick to reply and say: “Well, we are not ‘perfect’, nobody is!” No one said you were. But what did Jesus (and others) seem to suggest was going to happen regarding this idea of being ‘perfect’ or ‘complete’? (Matt. 5:48; James 2:2-4; 1 John 4:12,17) You might be inclined to say you don’t ‘sin like you used to’, but you still sin.’ In fact most seem to passionately believe that we will ‘always continue to sin...on this side of heaven’. So why would Jesus have taught to “Go, and sin no more.”? (John 5:14; 8:11) You have to admit, that sounds pretty ‘black and white’, does it not? I mean, He could have lovingly said...”Try harder to do better and you will sin less and less”; or He could have said, “Look...I know you are sinners and will always sin, but you need to cut loose of those really big ones ...