The Hungry Disciple

  Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” Jesus replied, “‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.   A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself; The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

Have you ever wondered how the Jewish Law became such a burden?  "And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them."  I have wondered how this burden came to be and God showed me a picture of a beautifully set table. I have been very intimidated by a beautifully and correctly laid table because I was not familiar with what utensil to use when or what food was to be placed on which plate. The beautifully set tables at which I have been seated were always filled with others who knew the ropes whle I hesitated, watched and tried to follow their lead.  Most Jews in Jesus' day were in exactly the same confusing place when it came to figuring out what God wanted from them, endeavoring to follow those who knew the deal without understanding the why or the wherefore. Suppose The Lord God saw those He loved eating off of a dirt floor and decided to tel...

The Bible contains a parable told by Jesus about a pearl of great price. A  traveling business man, was constantly looking for genuine pearls. He came across an exquisite pearl. It was just what he had been looking for!  He could hardly believe it. Immediately, he sold everything he owned to buy the pearl. Jesus says The Kingdom of Heaven is like a  traveler, a business man, a barterer, a man who knew how to get by in The Kingdom in which he moved and did business, always searching for a more priceless and genuine pearl. Bible students have supposed most regularly that Jesus is "The Pearl of Great Price" who moves us to sell all we have to acquire Him.  In the modern interpretation, we are the pearl of great price, Jesus is looking for us, giving His life for us. Jesus says, The Kingdom of Heaven is like, going on to use an example that is a scenerio not a thing.  Being the I Am, Jesus' words are always present tense. The Kingdom of Heaven is,...

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...