Spiritual Ponderings

When I mourn and feel pain for something that I give up for Jesus, that pain reveals a sympathy in my flesh for something that is preventing me from being fully loyal to Him. In effect I am sympathizing with the enemy of my best Friend. But how do I feel when someone who claims to love me still has sympathy for someone who only wants to hurt me and sabotage my relationships with those I love? That is why God insisted that Aaron not mourn when two of his sons died from their acts of rebellion against God. To mourn is to sympathize and sympathy for an enemy is disloyalty to a friend. A problem arises in this arena when one is trying to obey the convictions of the Spirit to let go of something that has very strong emotional attachments but has not taken the time to cultivate counteracting replacement attachments with God's heart. They are not using one magnetic attraction as a means of repelling the other magnetic attraction. If you have played around with magnets you will ...

It is generally viewed as being quite selfish to come to the Christian life with an attitude of “what's in it for me”. This is sometimes met with quick reprimands using Jesus' admonitions about getting focused on what God wants or serving other people's needs and other such things designed to induce a sense of shame and guilt for ever slipping into such a base way of thinking. But as I think about it this morning I am not so sure that God may not have designed us to operate from this motive at least to some degree. As I contemplate many of the teachings of Jesus there seems to be a common thread of making offers to us to offset whatever it is God is asking us to give up in order to enjoy them. Even the example of Jesus Himself in going to the cross seems clearly to involve a desire to secure what was in it for Him as a means of bolstering His heart to endure that horrendous experience. ...Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set ...

Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest. (Matthew 25:27) Options for use of the money: Ask for a loan for the same amount as the money you have using the money itself as collateral. Then take the double amount and buy something that has good promise of increase. Give the money to a loan company so that they have money to loan others and owe you some of the interest. Doing nothing with the money but protect it. Spend the money on yourself with little thought of the consequences. Look for some project that needs investment money, study that project for its viability and the integrity of the people involved and then invest in a high return idea. This implies that the higher the return potential that the risk is equally higher of losing your investment. Look for very safe investments that typically have lower returns than the high risk investments that may leave you hanging out to dry. L...

I began to wonder about something a couple days ago. Is it a possibility that when I dwell on the faults of others or even spend much time listening to or reading the news about bad things happening around the world, or when I fill my mind with information about conspiracy theories that can frighten me or pass along rumors about what people in positions of authority are doing to abuse their power – am I in fact attempting, at least some extent, to take onto my own self the sins that I am thinking about? And if that is so, then am I also attempting to do what only Jesus is supposed to do? And here is another thought connected with that. Is this why God's Word says am supposed to spend my time in praise and gratitude and focusing on the real truth about God's goodness and greatness and love and grace and mercy? Because to dwell on anything less than that by feeding on the negative things of this world is to act as an antichrist, trying to do the work of the Sin-bearer, is...

I am crucified with Christ. (Galatians 2:20 KJV) There are four important operative words in this most important statement describing the experience of every genuine Christian. But until now I have missed possibly the most important message hiding in plain sight here. There is so much in these simple words that I am sure I do not have time or space right now to unpack a lot of it, but I want to capture what I am seeing before it slips out of sight. I am Crucified I am the one that needs crucified. This is all through the references Jesus made repeatedly about taking up my cross and following Him. Of course, if I have the typical confused or distorted views of why Jesus died on the cross then I will continue to have very vague ideas about the meaning of what it means to take up a cross or be crucified myself. But given the much clearer pictures of God and an increasing appreciation of the real issues and reasons around why the event of His cross took place, I now have much...

A god is the source from which we get our sense of identity and worth and value. In addition, our god will become our mentor which will shape what our character becomes like. Our concept of our God becomes the model, the template that determines and forms how we relate to others as well. It is very easy to be confused about the identity of our gods. A person who claims to be a Christian will sometimes have the most difficult time becoming aware of the many gods in their life because of the Law's requirement that there be only one God for them. As a result people will believe that they worship only one God while in fact they are depending on many gods without being aware of it. This makes it very difficult to renounce other gods because they tend to remain largely obscured from consciousness. I believe it might be much easier to unmask the many gods that we in fact do worship if we honestly applied the above definitions to help expose them in our own lives. If I can...

And it will be said in that day, "Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation." (Isaiah 25:9) This text has been taught to me all of my life as the words that God's people will exclaim when they finally see that Jesus is coming to rescue them at the Second Coming. I have heard these words quoted many times throughout my life and I am in no doubt that this is what will be said at that time. However, this text has come up in my mind several times recently and I have begun to see much more in here than ever before. Because of continued exercise in inductive study methods I now see much more in everything that I read and this verse is now much richer in meaning for me than ever before. The first thing that suddenly jumped into my attention was the waiting part. Now I am seeing some of the implications under this word more clearly. If God's people ...