What Have We Done?

We chose to love the prisons we built for ourselves, and mock the ones who told us there was something better.

We chose to squander our future and our children and future generations’ future, in trade for a little bit more pleasure, importance, recognition, popularity, escape, rest, wickedness, or pride.

We laughed at what was truly wise, and thought we were smart for going down the broad way that leads to destruction alongside “everyone else”.

We didn’t just have our blessings stolen by the enemy, we gladly handed them over to the enemy in trade for more poison — time after time again.

We didn’t love each other or help each other, we just mocked, judged, pitied, or avoided people when they didn’t have something we could use or benefit from.

When someone hurt us, we continued the cycle by hurting them a little deeper than they hurt us — so they would maybe target someone else instead.

Every single one of us.

We have all been foolish. We have all made mistakes.

There is a better Way.

“Sin” isn’t just some list of arbitrary do’s and dont’s used to measure ourselves and compare ourselves to others. It is a sickness, a disease that is clearly a part of all our lives that whispers lies, distractions, temptations, and feelings into our minds that are not healthy or beneficial to us and those around us. It is something that we all deal with, and no one will live life without eventually realizing that there are these attractive looking traps in life that come with costly consequences.

My God does not hate you and want to destroy you because you don’t follow His list of arbitrary rules. Those are in fact some of the biggest lies put out there to blind you to who He really is.

My God loves His children. Like a loving Father, He does not want His children to suffer, but He wants them to prosper — not just in this moment, not just as an individual, but as a healthy, fruit bearing family branch that extends generation after generation, decade after decade, century after century.

He knows that you aren’t going to get it right every time. He knows that you are going to make mistakes. He knows that at times things are going to be hard. He even knows that at times you might hate Him and might decide to live as if He doesn’t even exist.

But He loves you.

Even if people that say they know Him say He hates you because you do X, Y or Z — they are just confused by their own sin and projecting their hatred for themselves onto you because they don’t know His love themselves.

And if you’re thinking “don’t I have to give up X, Y, Z for Him to love me” or “why would I want to be like those people that say they know God but are hateful, judgemental, etc.” — hear me when I say that type of “religion” is not The Way.

He loves His children, so talk to Him yourself.

If you’re not sure that you even remember how to get in touch with Him on your own — We can talk to Him together.

I love you and hope you have a wonderful day.

He’s not mad at you, and He’s looking forward to talking with you soon.

If you don’t think you can, ask me about the price He paid, ask me about how He put Himself on display as a testimony of His love for YOU. There’s a hill called Calvary that tells the story of His love. Amen.

You may not even know yet or believe yet that there are things in your life that are killing you, stealing from you, and hurting those around you. Talk with Him and ask Him to give you wisdom and to open your eyes to see things truly as they are. Blessings my friend. Amen.

Why am I like I am?

I don’t need the spotlight,
’cause I already got light —
so I’ll just play the background,
instead of playing the clown.

It isn’t that I don’t care,
but I don’t need them all to stare.
I know who I am inside,
and that isn’t someone that I need to hide.

So if you let me sing His name,
you’ll find for me it isn’t some game.
And if you find me up in front of a crowd,
preaching hard and singing loud —
it’s a fire and I can’t hold it in,
so grab your seats and invite a friend.

Cause I don’t have to preach you into hell,
most do that on our own pretty well.
I just have to welcome you in,
because He really is a great friend.

I know you’ve seen a lot of bad religion,
of hate and judgement and men who love power —
but do you know mercy and humility and forgiveness
that makes even the proudest men cower?

I love you friend,
and I once shared your doubts —
I’ve looked all over this world
and we all only have one way out.

It won’t be your money or pleasure that you prize at a last breath,
so why prize it now on your way towards your death?

Listen and hear, open up your ears,
lay down your pride, and let your hearts fear —
that this life can be wasted,
this life can fall short.

What will you have at the end of it all?
Have you felt the tug, have you heard the call?

When is your time…

… don’t wait.

Get your heart and your direction right my friend. And help me keep mine right too.

Love you. Thank you Jesus!

Helping vs Enabling

Helping?
Enabling?

Am I helping someone do something challenging that will improve their situation?
Or letting someone continue to do what they want that is bad for them without facing consequences?

How can I tell the difference between helping vs enabling?

If it is easy and they could do it themselves, they should do it themselves. Teaching others to rely on us for what they could and should be doing for themselves creates an unhealthy dependence, an unbalanced relationship, and a dangerous power dynamic that can easily be abused or taken advantage of.

If we have to tolerate bad behavior — if we must make excuses or help “hide things” for others — if we cannot talk openly and directly about the decisions or actions that brought about the current circumstances — if the person only sees themselves as a victim of circumstances — if the person never genuinely contemplates how their own decisions and actions have contributed to the current circumstances — if the person will not learn from the situation to take responsibility themselves and make changes themselves — if you are doing things for them they could and should do for themselves — WE ARE PROBABLY NOT HELPING THEM.

Having a heart for others who are in need is a good thing, and we should be ready to help others who are truly in need.

When a person’s story focuses on their being a victim of circumstances, when it only focuses on their hurt/pain/ suffering — rather than what they are already doing on their own that is challenging them (identifying their own mistakes, learning what they can do differently themselves, sacrificing and working hard towards improvement that will help them in the future even if it is hard in the moment) — this is a sign of someone who wants to be enabled, rather than someone who wants to HELP THEMSELVES and have a friend or healthy support system ALONGSIDE THEM in THEIR OWN JOURNEY through this CHALLENGE.

Challenges in this life are an opportunity for individuals to learn and grow. The solution to someone else’s challenge IS NOT us inserting ourselves as the fix/solution/hero/savior and not allowing the challenge to be their journey.

Are we willing to listen, encourage, and invest time to help them work through the issue themselves (not being/providing the “quick fix” so that things can “go back to normal” as quickly a possible)?

Truly helping is not usually three quick or easy choice. Enabling is tempting because many times it makes the immediate challenge “go away” more quickly or easier (seemingly for us and for them).

But what if we put in the harder work of actually helping — rather than enabling — and rather than using “I might be enabling” as an excuse for just ignoring them?

Asking

I see friends in real pain and hurting around me.

And I hear the promise of the Word of God:

John 14:13-17 NKJV

“And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. “If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.”

So we might ask ourselves a few questions when we have prayed and “asked in His name”, yet we have not seen the “that I will do” part.

I might ask myself things like,

• “Am I ‘praying’ or ‘asking in His name’ wrongly?”
• “Am I expecting Him to do it in my own imperfect way or timeline — when His way and His time is better and perfect?”
• “Is what I’m asking for not going to bring glory to the Father in the Son?”
• “Am I hindering His prayers on my behalf because I do not love Him and I am not keeping His commandments?”
• “Have I not been given this spirit of truth that will abide with me forever?”
• “Is God slow to answer?”
• “Does God really care about me?”
• “Does God even exist?”

Those last questions can even feel scary to put down on paper if we have a genuine fear of God — but He knows that these are real questions and doubts that people have in their hearts. So it does us no good to hide them in the shadows.

I wonder how often we are satisfied with rattling these doubts around in our minds but we have been unwilling to bring our petitions to God?

I wonder how often we have been satisfied with taking our requests to God — but not truly speaking the promises in His name, loving Him, eagerly living His commandments, and wrestling with Him over how we might reconcile His promises and what we do not yet see. Yes, this is the life of hope in what is not yet seen — that we walk by faith in what we have seen and already know about Him.

I wonder how many of us have feared a wrestling match with the Almighty, and we have avoided even coming into His courts? Is it because we thought that we might be unwelcome, that we might be unworthy, that we might find an angry God who does not love us but only demands and take from us?

I love how so many encounters between the spiritual and mankind start out with something like “Do not be afraid”.

The door is open. Will we enter into real prayer? Into calling on His Name, into speaking His Word and His promises, into a willingness to wrestle in an active, conversational, confessional, powerful, personal, connected prayer life? Or will we be satisfied with running off to do our own thing with what God has given us like a prodigal — maybe even forgetting to send God a “text and a selfie” type of prayer once in a while just to “check in” — instead of wanting Him involved and engaged as part of our lives?

Shelter and Rest

There is a shelter where we can find rest, and it isn’t lifting ourselves higher and higher, struggling to climb a ladder. The higher a man thrusts himself up a ladder, or the higher he tries to stand up on the backs of others, the more spectacular his eventual fall will be.

But a man who knows his humble part in something bigger, a man who is grateful for being a part of a vision and purpose that is greater than himself — that is a similar type of rest and protection as what us children find living in the shelter and the shadow of the Lord.

But even great causes, even great callings, and even great opportunities are not the firm foundation or the protection that us children will find in the Almighty. He alone is God, and trusting Him is a shelter and place of safety that cannot be taken away from us.

If you don’t know him,
if you don’t even believe that He is real,
if you have laughed at silly people who talk to their “invisible sky daddy”,
if you have thought that “those brainwashed people” are just following some man-made religion —
I personally invite you to come to Him,
Not an invitation to come to me,
not an invitation to join my church,
Not an invitation to follow me,
Not an invitation to be indoctrinated,
But an invitation to meet Him —
And to decide for yourself whether or not He is good.

Please don’t mishear my invitation,
Even wearing the right outfit,
and getting together on the right days,
and doing the right things,
And saying the right things,
And talking about Him,
And calling yourself by His name,
And doing things in His name,
Is NOT the same thing,
As knowing Him and trusting Him,
And Him knowing you.

So this invitation goes out to the white washed religious zealots (who are dead and rotting inside) just as strongly as to those unaware and whose seed has not yet sprouted.

The invitation is to turn to God. You might not even know yet or believe what He might touch and make better. Or you might be very educated “about” the Lord, but there is no life in your scholarly efforts and you need your life to produce fruit from His source of life, not just from your own efforts. No matter the reason that you need oil for your lamp, you are invited so don’t delay. You don’t have to clean yourself up first, come as you are. He is God and knows even better than us what we need. He is not far away, He is near.

Doing Our Work

Until recently, much of what I’ve written and recorded on here has been generously peppered with Christian vernacular and religious terms. I’m guessing partly because I was trying to confirm that what I believe and what the Holy Spirit teaches and guides me through has been tested and proven. I could use religious terminology and concepts with my pastor and ministry friends to help nail down the topics that we were discussing, contemplating, encouraging, and holding each other accountable.

Dropping quotes and scripture references and religious terms in the midst of my sentences can help make it clear to my Christian brothers and sisters that “I’m one of them” and serve as a common ground to communicate more complex (admittedly sometimes “high minded”) Christian concepts and ideas quickly — in rapid fire sermons, teachings, monologs, etc. And we can quickly go down the rabbit hole into deeper theological discussions by pointing to these terms and concepts while leading scholars and theologians of various levels down familiar and agreed upon roads of ages upon logic and reasoning.

But I’ve found that using these types of “foreign language” can create walls and be a hindrance when my audience is not “good Sunday pew setters” and “Bible thumpers” (yes, those derogatory terms are used for sarcastic effect). And I see the example of Jesus/Yeshua’s “preaching with authority” in His sermon on the mount that starts in Matthew 5. And I see the examples of His parables.

Jesus/Yeshua didn’t follow the same “rabbinical reading of the scriptures” and “explaining what the scriptures meant” to the people that they were used to. That familiarity of the people with a certain type of teaching/preaching seems to parallel what I find many of the expositional preaching and hermeneutics books that I’ve read and been recommended over the years by basis religious teachers and friends. While using the scripture as a source of authority works if I’m dealing with people who have already accepted the Bible as the Word of God — repeating “the Bible says” and using only a stream of religious terms that a non-religious audience wouldn’t understand doesn’t seem to me to be the example that He gives me. As much as I love the high minded theological debates and flowing streams of big religious terminology and references that inflate my teachings into what I might feel are “more worthy” and eloquent masterpieces and beautiful patchwork quilts in the style of Spurgeon, etc. The example that He gives me seems quite different than my self-taught Bible College courses might have impressed upon me more. Maybe this is my own fault and what I was drawn to, not a systemic issue for the trade of prophets and teachers. The use of “ply their trade” in the rebuke of false prophets and false priests in Jeremiah 14:18 in the ESV leaps off of the page in a way of describing the more common “walking/roving around in a land that they don’t understand” — does seem to be a great warning about the dangers of speaking about God versus speaking from the call of God and by the anointing oil of the Holy Spirit.

So in a way, my study, my writing, my worship is returning to my first love. I am returning to a focus on the precepts. I am cleaning my house and my vocabulary from focusing on the terms and references that clearly signal my virtue as a “well studied religious teacher” so that I might sit myself down as a student — to learn,and speak, and think, and live as His example leads me.

I am repenting from seeking the affirmation and attention of long pickled jars instead of harvesting cucumbers. I am repenting from being lukewarm and comfortable in the audience and on the stage one day a week with “all the good Christian people” — instead of uncomfortably challenged every day in the dark places bringing light and hope where the doctor is needed (by not just THEM, but desperately by ME even more).

I wonder how much it would trouble the embedded religious order of the day greatly if the congregants took the love of Jesus into the gay bars, into the strip clubs, into the places of pornography, into the drag shows, into to drug dealers, addicts and whores in the trap houses, into the jails, into the prisons, into the house of the rich and the poor man, into the pro-choice and the pro-abortionist, into the Democrat and the Republican, into the Christian Nationalist and the immigrant/refugee, into the flag waving “the South shall rise again” redneck and the Antifa flag waving “defund the police” militant, into those whose home dinner tables are just as segregated today as they would have been under Jim Crow laws then and to those woke enough to hate all white men and blame them for everything wrong as a victim rather than take ownership and move forward as a champion, etc. and brought all of them into the storehouse together?

Maybe the same struggles between cultures and weaknesses and imperfections and immaturity that we see in the churches in Paul’s letters that people wag their fingers and tongue at today (from one side or the other) are exactly the kind of thorn we need in our own side, for us to be humbled, and “our own ministry” to be of any use to God as truly “His ministry”?

Lord, I can’t say that I know exactly where we are going with this. But I know that you are calling for change, for a return to the heart of worship, for a casting side of everything that hinders. I need you desperately in order to not make a complete mess of this. You are my strength. Keep me close to you and in your will, so that I won’t distract, hinder or stumble any who might taste and know that you are good. Amen.