This may be the most important part of the ‘Out and About’ series, which is why I start with a quote from the last article.  “In going out and about we will run into all kinds of people, situations and problems for which there seems to be no direct entry, understanding or solution.  There needs to be some kind of access point.  This is where the work of the Holy Spirit really gets us connected.” 

 

It’s that idea of gaining access to a person, a situation or a problem that we…

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In going out and about we will run into all kinds of people, situations and problems for which there seems to be no direct entry, understanding or solution.  There needs to be a doorway, a gate, some kind of access point.  This is where the work of the Holy Spirit really gets us connected.  He is the penetrating oil that soaks the rusty hinges of sin that have jammed shut the doors of our spiritual sensitivity. 

 

Before we can really get into where we are called when…

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There is a very positive show on TV called ‘Extreme Makeover’ where a needy family deserving a better home is taken away for a vacation week and a new home rebuilt on their property while they are away.  A limousine brings the family back and stops next to a bus.  There is a welcoming crowd cheering and the bus blocks the family’s view so they can’t see the new home that awaits them.  The crowd starts shouting, “Move that bus, move that bus, move that bus…”  When it is moved they react as…

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In this ‘Out and About’ sequence we have looked at the overall spiritual dimension with its duel experience of God’s light and the devil’s darkness.  For a moment we need to digress into the atmosphere of Jesus’ light.  There are three reasons for this. 

 

First, Jesus is building in us something that is eternal, our spiritual bodies, “If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body (1Cor.15:44).” 

 

Second, just as our physical body needs clothes so…

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Today I want to hit something special, the spiritual dimension and how we live in it.  We want to see its breadth, our limitations and the resources He has given.  No matter where we are or what we are doing, we are in the midst of unseeable processes and forces that are attempting to shape and manipulate the way we operate in the invisible dimension all around us.  We have already spoken about them from Ephesians 6 as the principalities and powers from the dark world and the spiritual…

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For us to apprehend the spiritual dimension in detail and to see our part in it we look at Genesis.  First, we accept that God created the heavens and the earth (Gen.1:1).  Second, the Holy Spirit is hovering ready to go to work (1:2).  Third, God said, “Let there be light.”  That’s where we start.  God has given us the light of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, to see in the unseen.  Peter, James and John saw that light in Jesus’ Transfiguration (Mt.17).  As we have already noted Paul prayed for the…

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If you have been following the tack I have taken here, zeroing in on the spiritual dimension, you’ll recognize my emphasis on this dimension being the source of everything that motivates us.  Logically it follows that if everything has a spiritual source then if problems occur in the physical dimension they have a spiritual source and need spiritual correction.  That spiritual correction may lead to insight that enables physical adjustment.  For instance the whole field of medicine is the…

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The ‘out and about’ theme is where we are anytime we move from one place to another, one situation to another and one person to another.  Each one demands a response and triggers a reaction.  Three things are happening here, the movement, the trigger and the response.  Motivation is behind all three, motivation to go to a place, motivation in how we respond to the immediacy of a situation when we arrive and motivation in continuing through its resolution or ongoing attention.  Now when I say…

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OK---again---repeat after me---“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.  We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”  And if you ask me what a spiritual being is and what a human experience is I will tell you.  It is this simply: we come from a spiritual dimension and live in a physical one.  This is God’s revelation to us in Scripture.   It is in God’s Word that understanding finds its home.  It is there definition is born and the thoughts of God become known so that…

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In the last writing the emphasis was on motivation.  I concluded what Scripture tells us and that is---Jesus’ motivation for all He did was His Father.  If you count Jesus’ references to His Father in John’s Gospel alone you will find they number 131.  That has to say something about Jesus’ conscious motivation.  The relational emphasis is carried as a command from the Father on two occasions, Jesus’ Baptism (Mt.3:17) and His Transfiguration (Mt.17:5).   In both the Father said Jesus was the…

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In a recent meeting of a men’s discussion group someone raised the question about why Jesus died and asked ‘Would you be willing to die for a cause like He did?’  The assumption on the part of the questioner was that Jesus died for a cause.  The questioner obviously missed the meaning of the Cross.  Jesus didn’t die for a cause, ---He died for His Father.  Scripture is clear here. ‘Father, if you are willing take this cup from me; yet not my will, yours be done (Lk.22:42).”  On the Cross He…

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“I’ve got things to do and places to be,” you say to yourself.  You make a list, count it twice, check it again and “Oops, I forgot the rice.”  You write it down and rush out the door.  This is the way our day starts a lot of times.  But are we really prepared to walk out the door into the world as it is out there?  What I mean by that is this, are we really ready not only to do what needs to be done in the routine of daily life but are we really prepared for the spiritual dimension behind…

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A short while back I was in Colorado skiing. After the last run we went to a cafe at the bottom of the mountain. A bluegrass group was playing there called ‘Bent But Not Broken.’ They were really good. As I listened to them I also took in the atmosphere. Four guys obviously rough hewn from hard work and life’s daily pace playing great music that was their outlet to take and own a piece of the world. The place was full of skiers leaving their off-the-mountain ‘pieces of the world’ for a break, a… Continue

Have you ever wanted just to get outside of yourself every so often, to get a second look at who, what, why and where, you really are? It is so easy to escape into a land of philosophical denial or arrogant academics without ever getting to the cause of the questions. What the Bible does is to present us with a section of writings called Psalms that go from the outer world to the inner world, to the heartland, the land of the heart, where we really live inside.



The Psalms are the… Continue