The Hungry Disciple

My husband and I recently refinanced our mortgage. The sheets of legal mumbo-jumbo produced was impressive. We read through every page of it diligently.....just kidding!  We didn't even contemplate doing that. We thought we understood what we were doing because we somewhat understood what the loan officers, bankers and other experts told us, but one thing we knew for sure. If we started to read those pages we would be hopelessly confused.  I just had a discussion with some believers who were hopelessly confused about the Ten Commandments and Grace. Even unbelievers revere the Ten Commandments, I mean Charlton Heston as Moses branded God giving  the commandments into our retinas, and preachers, teachers and parents have branded them into our minds and sometimes backsides over the years, so we all have issues with casting those sacred tablets aside. Most believers vacillate between Grace and Commandments. As one woman in the discussion said, "our society would c...

I love snow and living in Virginia's Southside means I don't see it very often. I flew to the windows this morning hoping for snow and, be still my heart, the sunlight was glittering off that pearly white stuff everywhere I looked! First thing I did was open all the curtains and pull up all the blinds in my house so I could see the brilliant winter beauty everywhere I went. Then I set about making me some hot tea and raisin toast. It didn't take long for me to notice that my clean kitchen wasn't really clean. My wood floor was covered with dust and specks of cracker crumbs and other debris of life. I am not a OCD kind of homemaker by any stretch of the imagination, but I could not stand looking at that floor and headed to the broom closet. As I waited for my toast to pop up I noticed my counters weren't all that clean either, but littered with toast crumbs and smudges, so while I could see I wiped down all the counters. As I took my tea and toa...

Jesus talked about treasure and riches, wealth and mammon. He didn't shy away from using the most valuable thing in our world as an object lesson in His teaching. One of His most personal teachings, found in Luke 6:45 gives us a profound way to know what is buried deep in our heart.  Jesus says, " a good person out of the good treasure in his heart produces good talk while an evil man out of the evil treasure in his heart produces evil talk."   Jesus says it's our heart that does our talking.. The word Jesus uses, treasure, can mean a jewelry box or a coffin. The Bible speaks specifically of treasure because the word implies something that is hidden or buried.. Jesus is painting a picture of our heart, our most valuable organ, the seat of our feelings and their origins, as both chests of buried treasure and coffins full of dead garbage. We have many ways to excuse the things that come out of our mouths. Often after saying something ugly, vile or unkin...

This life makes us heavy-headed. Our wonderful gift of intelligence, marred by the knowledge of good and evil, suffers from TMI.  Too much information.  We can't help it. Life happens. Our brains are full of rabbit holes and like Alice we just can't stop ourselves from falling into the wanderland of thoughts-what ifs, how can, I could, I can't, maybe, if only, how come, I'll just, I know, I can't figure it out, I know what's going on here......until our head begins to droop and sag under the weight of all the stuff on our mind. When our head is hanging we can't see correctly. Our view is distorted and the signpost to peace and life in The Spirit is out of sight. All we can see is the intersection of disoriented and bewildered; unclear and perplexed; confused and unsure-we're just plain lost. When our head is weighted down we are in a perfect postition to look right into our heart. A hanging head is a Divine change in perspective!  L...

 When most people think of the Biblical word confession they think of confession of sin to a Priest or to God with regret, remorse and guilt.  In our world confession is admitting to something we've done wrong, like a criminal confessing to a crime. In our world confession leads to punishment, and unfortunately in Christ's Church confession is often linked to punishment, whether it is saying 10 Hail Marys and 10 Our Fathers or being left in the state of having unforgiven sin. It is a rare believer who doesn't worry that unconfessed sin will bring punishment and possibly exclusion from forgiveness by God. Some fear that unconfessed, and therefore unforgiven sin, will doom them to hell itself because I John 1:9 says, " If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness". This verse has been understood and taught in the negative-that we are not cleansed from unrighteousness unless all of our sin...

  Truly it is misunderstanding The Word of God that keeps many people from desiring a relationship with their Creator, and the passage from Matthew 25:31:46 can be most confusing. This passage is used to support the need for an accumulation of good works to get into Heaven.  It's has been preached and taught that way by the same people who teach and preach that we are saved by Grace through Faith so no man can boast. Unbelievers must scratch their heads and think, "How can both be true?" This picture painted by Jesus of Himself separating people into sheep and goats; goats being cast into hell and sheep being ushered into heaven, has been the source of much fear in believers and unbelievers alike, because we don't pay attention to who the sheep and goats are.  The sheep and goats are 'the nations'. That is what Jesus calls them.  Believers who have received salvation by Grace through Faith in Jesus' atoning death are not sheep or goats. The...

I'm The Hungry Disciple, and I've been chewing on Newness! When Jesus began His ministry He did not go down to the local synogogue and choose the top 12 Bar Mitzvah boys. He could have. He had been one of those young men himself, and considered discussing The Scriptures as being about His Father's business. Yet The Holy Spirit did not instruct Him to choose those Bible students, among them Saul of Tarsus, as students of The Kingdom of God. No He was instructed to choose simple fishermen, a tax collector, a political rebel and nobodys to teach His New and Living Way. One of the ways He explained His choice was by saying that it ruins the wine and the wineskin to attempt to put new wine into old wineskins.  We all know that grape juice becoming wine produces a gas and the container must stretch. The Hebrews used animal skins or stomachs to store liquids and they were used over and over and over. Eventually, after being used to hold new wine many times ...