The Hungry Disciple

Nothing produces a lengthy thread of comments on social media like religion or politics. I enjoy reading and taking part in these virtual discussions. I learn a lot but I am also saddened a lot. There's is nothing like a wide open debate  of crucial issues to ceate a sense of hopelessness. With all the opinions out there and the relentlessness of those who hold them, it's difficult to hope for common ground. Political common ground is possibly too much to hope for, but God did give believers spiritual common ground.  It makes me chuckle sometimes to read threads on Grace and other religious topics that contain so many ideas of man! I don't care how educated or illuminated a person is, Grace is a Who. Truth is a Who. Any fruit is determined by The Root. If you are studying The Word of God, Jesus must be the starting point or you're just gathering ideas. Scientists use the word singularity-the point of origin of all that is.   God calls it Jesus. Jesus...

Lost At Sea Fatherless children washed away by the sands and high tides, Churning free fall to the ocean. Restless, roiling,  cold and deep, no mooring, no anchor their souls to keep from the dark. Shoot uprooted,  deaf and blind; dreaming of harbor,  seeking a sign of the light. Abba! Find them arms above. Oh, draw them near you great heart of Love throb them home. "Sons to their fathers" our cry to You, as is in Heaven Your promise true. By your Spirit.

"Blessed are those who find wisdom for she is a Tree of Life" God has no beginning and man was not made when Genesis records " In the beginning". Genesis says in the beginning God created the Heaven and the earth.  He must have used those words, as He uses all language, to share a concept, a Truth that is Himself.  In that timelessness  perhaps God created a Kingdom called Heaven and a place called earth, and those words are the beginning of our story.  In timelessness The Spirit hovered lovingly over the waters of the deep. There must have been much timelessness between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2; a gap that cannot be comprehended.The Word says the earth then was without form and void. Tohuw and Bohuw in the Hebrew. Tohuw means formless, confusion, emptiness, chaos, and vain-having no purpose. Yet in Isaiah 45:18 the prophet says "[God] created NOT the earth  tohaw."  That would mean that something destructive, confused and chaoti...

"I am a material girl, and I am living in a material world," sang Madonna a few decades ago.  She was singing about a girl who loved things. Things she could touch. Things she could see. Things existing here on earth.  But Jesus said His Kingdom is not of this world. His Kingdom, The Kingdom of God, is not material. The Jews waited for The Kingdom of God, understanding it to be a physical reign by a physical Messiah, a Kingdom that would replace all the oppressive governments of this world and set this world to right. Christians claim to understand what The Jews didn't and yet much of our conversation concerning faith is about things of this world. Jesus did not come to bring a kingdom of earthly stuff. Jesus came to bring a Kingdom of Eternal stuff. God has placed eternity in our hearts. He has put a longing in our spirit for something greater than this world.  God never planned to redeem the world we live in.  His plan is to create a new heav...

Calvary, as important as it is for believers, has become obsured by communion. However, because of a basic misunderstanding of one of Paul's teachings, communion has become about our sin rather than Calvary. I want to invite you to see Calvary as Jesus described it. "As the serpent was lifted up in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up," Jesus said. So let's move our eyes off of Golgotha for a minute and go back to the desert where God's people were being killed left, right and center by deadly snakes. God told Moses to get a pole, put one of the serpents on the top and raise it up over the people, commanding them to look upon the serpent on the pole. God's instruction was to "look and live!", and when they looked at the snake on the pole they were healed from the deadly poison. Can you imagine, you are writhing in the pain of certain death and suddenly you look up at a brass snake and you are instantly healed and whole? As they mo...

I have been in a discussion with some other Christians this morning about the Bible. Many have been confounded by The Word most of their life and won't voice their questions because of reactions they produce in church. Some just weary of asking questions because they get the same old canned responses and doctrinal understanding they have always gotten. Inerrancy is a word that has been misused for thousands of years in relation to The Bible. To believe in inerrancy the way it has been most often taught would be to believe that Moses killed an Egyptian with God's blessing, that eating shellfish was an abomination to God and that Jesus taught maiming yourself is better than sinning. So, instead of going that route denominations and individuals have set themselves up to decide and teach what is inerrant and to, well, mostly ignore the rest. I never bought the inerrancy doctrine. As a teen I recognized by The Spirit that disgusting method of control right off the bat becaus...

Did you know that God is joy? God is gladness?  Joy and gladness as we know them are cheap imitations of joy that is the character and substance of God. Everything about Him is joyful. He is nothing but glad about you! He is nothing but joyous concerning you! His joy is safety for us. When we grasp that God's face is always going to light up when we walk into a room, we can feel nothing but safe and protected.  Have you ever noticed how a young child reacts to a person who is joyful? They become joyful. Ridiculously joyful. As human beings we have to put a lid on it just to keep things from being knocked off the furniture or to keep them from spinning in circles till they get so giddy they fall and crack their little skulls. Unchecked they will just spin off into joy so deep it becomes exhausting and they collaspe into a heap.  There has to be an atmosphere of complete safety to engross oneself completely in joy. Joy of the Lord is our strength, right?...