Dead Batteries

I have an expensive watch.  It keeps time, tells the date, is water proof to three atmospheres.   I get compliments on it all the time.  However I seldom where it.  It’s one of those watches you need to mess with every so often to keep it running.

This morning I went to wear this watch, but it would not work.  After messing with it a few times I decided the battery must be dead.  All this expensive mechanism, precise orchestration of moving parts, and interacting ability, all stopped because of a lack of power.

Our lives are often the same way.  Our power source is Christ and His Word.  But when is the last time you were really connected to Him?  When is the last time you allowed Him to move you, “mess” with you by eliminating your will and allowing His will to be done?  Or do we continue to get farther away from our Source, thinking we will run forever, not knowing the entire time we loosing power, and ultimately dying?

Today I challenge you to reconnect to your Source.  If you are tired and worn out in any area of your life, pray this prayer with me:  LORD, I am without power, and failing miserably.  You created me to have meticulous movement, ultimate ability, and great achievement, but without Your power I have been rendered ineffective in all  I try to do.  Today I purposely reconnect back to You.  I acknowledge You as my Source and Strength.  I will reconnect with you through Your Word, through Prayer, and yes through my sacrificial giving of my tithes and offering, so I may be obedient unto Your Word.  I thank You for Your love and forgiveness and always accepting me, Your child, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Now go read John 14:6 and follow Him

You're in Jail

You’re in Jail.  You have committed crimes worthy of death.  They take you before the judge and the judge presents to you the Law. He presents two sides: “this is how you were to behave, this is how you did behave.”  A large lump develops in your throat. Your breathing becomes short for you know death awaits you. 

The Judges ask you “How do you plead?”  And as you try to muster up the courage to say guilty, the doors of the courtroom fly open.  In walks your Father,  whom you have not seen all your life. He says, “Judge, allow me to take my sons place!” The judge quickly agrees and they arrest your Father in your place! The guards whisk him away into bondage.  You on the other hand are rushed out of the courtroom, and onto the stairs in front of the building.  No one is there for they are all inside gasping at what just happened.

You are at a lost. Your whole life has been spent incarcerated, and now you are in a city you don’t know.  You can’t believe what just happened. You know it should be you going to the death chamber, but instead you are now free.  You can no longer go and see your Father physically but the feeling of what He did for you remains with you always.

As you begin to walk down the street, unsure of where to go, you come across a man who says, come with me. You are undeniably drawn and you go.  When you get arrive, you find people in fellowship, laughing, connecting, loving, teaching, and sharing, they welcome you with open arms.

You are brought into the fold and you begin to learn where you went wrong, why what you did was punishable by death. You begin to learn about your Father.  You now feel welcomed, accepted, loved and cared for.  But it doesn’t stop there, you are so filled you are compelled to go back to the steps of the courthouse.  However, now you are not looking for your Father. You are looking for the one, who just was thrown out of the courtroom like you because His Father took his place also. And you begin to compel this man to come to the to experience the same love you experienced.

As for your Father?  He’s not dead.  For He now lives inside of you. Have you been that convicted felon who was set free? Did you know your daddy took the death sentence for you? Do you need to be shown how to be a true man or woman of God? Can you help show another how to have their Daddy with them always? Wherever you are now, Go Farther, now!

The Throne Was Vacated

The Throne was vacated to sit empty for a while.  A Holy Spirit descends.  Angels Hush.  A virgin is found.  A womb in habited.  An egg fertilized.  The Divine Artist of old, which created the heavens and the earth, removes His cloak of glory, and wraps Himself in human flesh.  He forms His own body.  Skin covering Spirit, Veins filled with the precious blood of Love.  Bones not to be broken, yet a heart already shattered.

He once again comes to walk the garden He created.  Yet this time, the garden has thorns, poisons and countless bitter wounds.  Discourse rules.  Sickness prevails.  Betrayals last.  Fear dominates. Guilt shames.

Clouds now hover in darkness, beast roar and groan.  Competition reigns.  Blindness destroys sight.

Once again a Tree appears, on a hill, far away.  The battle ensues.  The snake strikes.  The offer: lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.  Nothing new has come.  Still the same questions we face today, “Who’s will?” 

A choice is made.  Tears are mingled with blood.  Then, relationship is restored.  A bridge erected.  And a smile returns, “It is good” is uttered once again.

Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life. 1 Corinthians 15:22

Christ' Passion of the Cross

In Acts 1:3 we learn that Jesus “showed Himself alive, after His passion…” or after His crucifixion on the cross.  Why did He say it was His Passion? 

In the Greek the word passion is translated pathos.  It’s represented in the root word for our pathological.  This means being to such a degree that is extreme, excessive, or abnormal.

This goes beyond a mere feeling or desire, Jesus actually had an abnormal, excessive, extreme love for us all.  In Isaiah 53:10 which for tells of what God is about to do to Jesus, He says, “Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.”  We find that Jesus loved us so much that it pleased Him to be beaten for my sins, wounded for my transgressions, and chastised so that His peace may be upon me.  No matter how many times I would mess up,  not get it right, turn my back on Him, walk away from Him, hurt my loved ones, get prideful , talk back, break His commandments, lie, cheat, steal, covet, kill with my tongue, gossip, backbite, blow a fuse, inject drugs, run to an illicit relationship, prostitute myself out for money, friends, things, job advancement, or any other number of things, that He would be abnormally, excessively and extremely pleased to redeem me with His love.  What kind of God loves me like that?

My God, My God, what a mighty LOVING God you are!

Do you Believe on God or Believe God?

While traveling to Atlanta, there was a medical emergency on the plane. As the flight crew scrambled to assist the man who's blood pressure had fallen placing him nearly unconscious, I sat in my seat wondering, " How can I help?"

Immediately the enemy attacked me. Reminding me of how I loved medicine and how I failed to peruse a medical career. He told me if the many opportunities I've waisted not getting the life saving certifications such as CPR classes, which may or may not have helped here. He reminded me how this is not the first time I've nit been prepared to help and tried to tell me it wouldn't be the last either.

Before the incident I had begun working on a message about Believing on God or Believing God.  We often believe there is a God, but when it comes to believing God to do what He said He would do, we often fall very short. Do we truly have faith in the life we live? Makes me wonder, are we trying to save God from looking bad or ourselves from looking bad?

I was reminded of the Apostle Peter's words to the beggar outside of the temple,  "Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk." (Acts 3:6 KJV). I did not have the medical training. I had not taken the courses. I had failed in times past.  But God said "Give him what you do have!" ME!"

I began to pray and was immediately swept up in the Holy Spirit. I could then hear others praying also.  I'm not sure what all happened. I can tell you this, the mans blood pressure immediately returned to normal. He look cohesive and was smiling once again. Disaster adverted.

Upon landing their was a medical crew awaiting him. They checked him out and told him he was in good shape and should enjoy his trip. My take away here? It's time for us to believe God. His Word tells us we are over comers, more than conquerors, and able to do anything through Him! Yes we believe in God, but it's time we Believed God, too!

The Master, Sigh's

Scripture Reference: Looking up to heaven, he sighed and said, "Ephphatha," which means, "Be opened!" Mark 7:34

We know the story well.  Jesus takes a man with a speech impediment away from the crowd, as not to make a spectacle of His healing.  But did you catch what He did?  Something we usually pass right over without a thought.  But there is it in plain sight, "He sighed."

Yes there are many types of sighs.   Some of disgust, some of relief, some of expectancy, and even some of joy.  However this "Sigh" was a recognition of pain that was never intended, and of a hope deferred.  He knew it was never meant to be this way; the man was not to be impaired, the halt were to be whole, the love to never cease to overflow.  The Bible tells us He was in touch with our infinities.  (Hebrews 4:15)  The Creation was never intended to be inhabited by evil, so she sighs, yearning for the Garden.  Conversations with the Father were never intended to depend upon a translator, so the Holy Spirit groans on our behalf, looking for the day when Man will see God face to face.  Man was never created to be separated from his creator, so he sighs looking for home.  

When Jesus looks into the eyes of Satan's victim here, the only appropriate thing to do was sigh, "It was never intended to be this way." Our ears were never made to be deaf and our tongue not to stumble.  The imbalance of it all caused the Master to languish.

However in Jesus' agony, lies our hope.  Had He not sighed, we would never know He felt the burden of our infirmities, the things which were never intended, and we would be in pitiful condition.  Had He simply chalked it up to the inevitable or washed His hands of the whole mess, what hope would we have? But He didn't.  The holy sigh assures us God still groans for his children.  He groans for the day when all sighs will cease, when what was intended to be will be.

Car Trouble

As many of you know I've been restoring a 1975 Corvette.  Today I had car trouble.  As I sat on the side of the road, my first inclination was to pray.  Sounds “religious” I know, but you didn’t ask what I prayed.  I prayed, “LORD, what is it you want me to see in this and through this?  What are You trying to show me”?  Sound strange to you?  It shouldn’t.  While Jesus was about His earthly ministry He spent all of His time teaching and showing His disciples what they were missing so they could continue to grow in revelation of Him, thereby increasing their relationship with Him.  The only way to get to relationship is threw revelation of what He sees, desires and is trying to show us.

So I sat on the side of the highway, and waited.  He told me to get out of the car and watch all the people passing by me.  I did, there on one of the busiest highways in Dallas, I was standing behind my car watching people go by me at an alarming rate.  Some blew right by me, some slowed a bit, some looked at me, some did not even notice me, and others waved at me, and others even went as far as to point me out to their fellow passengers.  But no one stopped to talk with me.  They were all too busy trying to get to where they were going.

Then it hit me, how many of us are too busy with “where we are going” to even notice Jesus as we pass right by Him?  Have you ever blown by Him because you had an appointment?  Slowed down a bit in life to look at acknowledge His presence but then hurried on by to get to your next thing on your agenda?  Have you ever told your friends about Him, but in reality never really took time to see what He was trying to say to you?  Are we too busy trying to get to where WE are going, instead of trying to hear where HE wants to take us?

Well long story short, I got my car running again and off I went.  I also discovered I was low on oil, so I went to the store and got some: thus preventing a major problem “down the road.”  (As you know oil is the life blood of your car: but that’s a different blog) Thank You, LORD, for the situation, or how else would I know You as Jehovah-Shammah: The LORD is there!

LORD, thank You for slowing me down today enough to notice You and what You want to say to me, and in that allowing me to see a potential problem that could occur down the road, if I didn’t take the time to hear and acknowledge You!