The Hungry Disciple

God was Abraham’s friend. He talked to Abraham, changed Abraham, directed Abraham and blessed Abraham. His relationship with Abraham was the  first intimate interaction God initiated after creation and He made a great Promise to Abraham-that through him all the people on the face of the earth would be blessed.  Why would The Creator of the Universe be reaching out to Abraham? What did Abraham do to warrant such generosity? Could a ll of the woe of religion be based in a misunderstanding of what God wants? Genesis 26:25 tell us that God was Abraham's friend, "Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” Did you know that the law did not make its appearance on Mount Sinai? The word Torah, or Law was first used right here, in the verse describing the reason God blessed Isaac. First, Abraham obeyed God's voice .The same voice that called out for Adam in The Garden. Abraham heard God and kept God’...

I am an issues person. Always have been. I have always had a heart for Jesus and so have always wanted my stance on issues to line up with His Words. His Kingdom dynamics. With treating others as ones He loves, as well as disidentifying myself from all else. So for peope who think I'm beating a dead horse with this Confederate battle flag issue, understand It's a big deal to me.It's a big deal to hundreds of thousands of others. When I was 14 I watched kids my age get clubbed and fire hosed for the right to sit at a drugstore counter and have a coke. So I'm not going to stop trying to keep Southerners I love from making idiots of themselves over something they may not understand completely. We've grown up in a culture where this flag has become reminesent of little more than a decoration on a Dukes of Hazzard car. It's not.(and the show made us look like imbiciles anyway) We've grown up in a culture where we've been taught this is the flag of ou...

This won't go without correction, and it not meant to be a theological thesis. It's just something The Spirit has shown me (and will continue to show me) to free me from the spirit of religion. God never meant to become a religion. Isaiah 1:11, Psalm 51:16, I Sam 15:22 are a few scriptures that show that God's desire is not for blood sacrifices.  Remember, God's first covenant with a man and his family required the cutting of the foreskin of a man-not a sacrifice, not for blood but for sensitivity-as a picture of being open and sensitive to God's interaction. The law covenant was made when the Israelites came out of Egypt a great nation, a society that needed some kind of governance. God's first covenant with this nation was a blood covenant, probably because blood sacrifice was something that the people of that era were very familiar with, in a brutal, capricious, and cruel way, but something they recognized a momentous. The law covenant was a m...

We, not other people, own our depression. When we are depressed the words and actions of others have exaggerated importance in our self-worth and on our decision making. We can begin to use people to make us feel happier which is a burden no one can bear for long. We can believe other people and their feelings and actions are the source or cause of our depression. Our view of ourselves and others can become fixed and we can't imagine our feelings changing. We become stuck.   A parent making a wise decision can find themselves dealing with a toddler pouting and whining to get their way, demanding that they be made happy. A parent can guide their teenager safely with a limit or restriction, only to be accused of ruining their lives. Both are immature perceptions by a child to caring adult input. When we are depressed we can mentally put others in a parental or care taker role, allowing ourselves to become emotionally volitile and react with immature responses. When we a...

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...