Advent 5a God Came Through a Different Door

 “The world is unprincipled. It's dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn't fight fair. But we don't live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren't for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for…

Advent 5 Another Doorway

 Part of my self-survival training in New York City during my high school years was getting a job. I don't remember any of the other guys on the block doing that, but I knew it was important for me. I had several. One was walking polo ponies at a local indoor arena off Park Ave. (That's a story in itself). Another was working on a horse drawn vegetable…

Advent 4 War Along the Trail

 We are still talking about the trail between hearts being the longest trail. It is a spiritual trail filled with obstacles to faith in God. Along that trail guerrilla warfare is the devil’s order of the day. It’s not open warfare but one fought defensively on the perimeter of the heart. The devil sends his spirits of fear, lust, greed, envy, jealousy and anger, to name a few, so that…

Advent 3 The Longest Trail Revisited

 “Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning (Lk.12:35)”

 If you really think about what we said last time, the longest trail is between hearts. We can take a plane and in one day be in Asia. We can go by car and reach the West Coast in a…

Advent 2 Why We Prepare the Way for Jesus

Now here’s the rub---when our religious, political, economic and educational structures, the foundational support system for our whole human enterprise, are separated from God, they take His place and eventually self-destruct. Our world, our culture, is in meltdown because of secularization, its political correctness and the de-spiritualizing of all our social institutions.…

Advent, What Were We Made For? 

“But I say unto you, that in this place is one greater than the temple (Mt12:6).”

 Which is really greater? Is it the building, the people, the leadership, the institutional forms and rules under which they operate, or the One for whom all that exists? Another way of…

Daring to Live 

When we were kids we used to egg one another on by saying “I dare you.”   “I dare you” to do this or that usually meant something that would arouse your pride and fear. No one ever wants to be seen as afraid of anything. Remember being on the garage roof and jumping off with an open umbrella?

 …

My Political Opinion, What’s Yours?

 As a citizen I pose this question to consider. What is more important in an election, the personality of the politician or the policies he or she backs? Let’s carry it further. Is it their appearance, the way they carry themselves, our spot judgment based on how the media present them? Or is it the policies, the issues they stand…

Politics: Violence and Emotion or Reconciliation, Your Choice 

The words of Hebrew Scripture set the stage for the coming of the Messiah and continue to reveal His plan for human reconciliation. But reconciliation doesn’t start with intellect or psychology or religion or just the desire to ‘get back to the way things used to be.’ It starts with a relationship with God through…

Fear, Our Hidden Enemy

 Pride is the enemy of wisdom. It feeds the belief we have ultimate control of what we think, who or what we trust and how we behave. It is an attitude, a mindset, a confidence in self that somehow, we are in charge of making our way out of aloneness into significance, moving from the bottom to the top of whatever goal we set. It is that invisible…

There’s No One Like You

 There is no way you can exhaust newness. Everything that is ahead is new. Life every day is new. The seconds, minutes, hours, days, month and years, they are all future. It’s God’s desire revealed in Creation and especially in Jesus. With newness comes choice and decision and the challenge they present.…

What It Means to be a Disciple

The sequence of events in John’s Gospel is significant. We begin with the beginning and it was the Word made flesh who was and is the Light of the world. He was full of grace and truth. Then John the Baptizer was sent to prepare for His coming by preaching repentance for sin and proclaiming His identity as the Lamb of God. The Jesus calls His first…

John’s Gospel, Our Spiritual Game Changer

 The whole first chapter of John has one immediate purpose, to lift up Jesus who is God the Son, the One sent to reveal and restore humanity to the spiritual dimension. That means to place everything in a spiritual context; to think spiritually, to trust spiritually and to act spiritually. Jesus in the flesh of mankind is the example,…

Spirituality in John, Getting a Grip

 A few years back when our family camped in Yellowstone National Park, one of our best experiences was at night. We had gone to a campsite with only our flashlights where a forest ranger gave a talk about the stars. It was a cool clear night and dark except every part of the sky was alight with the stars, especially the Milky Way. What was…

It’s Dark Out There, Someone Turn on the Light 

“When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life (Jn.8:12).” 

There can’t be anything more obvious than the fact that everything we do is…

MDI (Thespianitis)

 With all the new diseases coming into our culture there is one that seems to be most publicized and, having numerous symptoms, causes allergic reactions and is contagious. It’s thespianitis. It has a central gestation location in a suburb of Los Angeles known as Hollywood and seems to infect personalities whose only skill is to assume personality change when…

Wisdom 49 The Deeper Strongholds

 So far, we’ve touched on the strongholds that may be fleeting and easier to have healed. But there are deeper strongholds that are embedded coming from our home environment. There is nothing more effecting than parental influence. The relationship of mother and father touches the depth of the growing heart in a child. If that relationship is…

Wisdom 48 Strongholds, the Devil’s Conspiracy 

But what about the thoughts, the pretensions, the behavior of others, that are shaped by their strongholds? We’ve mentioned it before but repetition here is a good thing. We have to take our stand in the Holy Spirit who keeps us conscious of the Lord’s presence. Paul again gives us a super list that the Spirit will put into our mind…

Wisdom 47 Strongholds; the Heart’s Hidden Menace

When we consider the immediate responses of people to circumstances in which they find themselves, it is vital we grasp the fact that what motivates those responses comes from deep inner heart reflexes. The heart is the subject. What happens there determines response. What we need to evaluate is the reason for, the purpose…

Wisdom 46 Attitude Under the Microscope

 After compiling that list of attitudinal strongholds in Wisdom 45, a whole other bunch came to me. Snob, calculating, bourgeois, racist, nouveau riche, elitist, but enough. I don’t want to get hung up. I’m sure you got the point. We have developed these strongholds for self-protection because the heart is emotionally fragile. Its walls are…