Monthly Archive for March, 2006

Share the Journey

I know I am being changed: have been, and pray it will continue because I am so far from BEING who I was called and created to be. But aren’t we all?

Why is that?

N.T. Wright makes a lot of sense when he said in his most recent book, The Last Word, “People usually do not want to hear anything they don’t already believe so that they can go on thinking what they have always thought.” I agree, but I shake my head in wonderment as to WHY we would want to do that if we consciously comprehend it; especially if in so doing, the results are bad for us. I guess it all goes back to the ego: that false self that so wants to control our lives.
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Rediscover the Truth

If somehow, and I know this is a poor analogy, Jesus were to come back to earth this year, and run for office, would anybody vote for Him?

I seriously doubt it.

I’m an American and will always so be, so the context of my messages must remain here as with so many other commentaries. What’s happening in America, isn’t in much of the rest of the world. Good thing too. Christianity is seeing revival in many parts of the world and signs and wonders are marching right along side. In America, Christianity has lost is luster, saltiness if you will. Church attendance is going downhill fast. So, enough of the distinctions, I’m feeling bad.

America is in to BIG, POWERFUL and GRANDIOISE. Jesus is not!
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The Scary Truth

So much of what we see, think, hear, and “think we know” is because of the culture we were reared in: and the soup we are still marinating in- otherwise known as our lifestyles. I wear glasses, you wear glasses, and as Bart Ehrman so profoundly points out, “When a person just READS a Scripture, they are changing and interpreting it.”

Think about it: it’s a scary TRUTH!
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Microscopes

Every now and then you hit a nerve, a vein of gold, pay dirt, a motherload, or whatever. Yesterday’s commentary seemed to hit home with a lot of people. Suffice it to say that I received more positive emails from it than any other recent commentary. We live to journey on yet another day!

The questions don’t get any easier though.

Let me ask you if you’ve been troubled by a verse that resonated within me today. It rolled around like like a loose cannon within my spirit, and finally made its way to my brain with enough clarity that I think I can express it to you. The verse is John 3:2. Like with so many things that Jesus said, it’s what Nicodemus implies here and not what’s stated.
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Jesus: A Wisdom Teacher

March 26, 2006 – Jesus was a subversive sage who taught unlike any before Him or since. One cannot wrap their mind around the Bible or the teachings of Jesus by using conventional thinking or logic. The call to repent means to go beyond your current level of thinking, to move into the realm of the Spirit, where scandalous concepts challenge us to take life a notch higher… every day!

 
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The Truth Will Set You Free

Frustration, and maybe a little anger, is better than apathy!

Did you really think that being a Christian was going to be as easy as making a one minute public confession, possibly getting dunked, dropping a few coins in the offering tray, and attending church when all your systems were go (50% of the time)?

Surprise!
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Can You Hear It?

Why are so many in the Christian community not nice people?

Forget the nice, why will you be ex-communicated, on a non-legal, but equally as devastating playing field, if you go against a sacred cow: especially one that should be slaughtered? Too many fundamentalists, and others, come across as know-it-alls, when Jesus Himself didn’t! Figure that one out!
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Metaphors

Before I take off on my Monday commentary, just a brief review of what is so simple and yet so devastating to the state of Christianity today.

In the pre-literate world, when life was lived and passed on orally, man used STORIES to make memories easier to pass from generation to generation. For several thousand years until Christ came, we “Metaphorized History”.
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After-Life Hysteria

Becoming a Christian is NOT about getting to go to HEAVEN!

Unfortunatedly the church has scared the hell INTO way too many people. You read it right, INTO, instead of OUT OF! The hell-fire and damnation messages of the last century did make an impact, albeit a bad one. And the long and tedious altar-calls have pushed people into doing things emotionally and humanly that they wouldn’t otherwise do. Unless it is the Holy Spirit that is calling us, there isn’t anything happening. The lights not on, you’re home alone, and the elevator isn’t going anywhere!

How did this “after-life” hysteria become the driving force of the church?
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Tomorrow Comes Out Of Today

How much in love with life are you?

I am sure that answer depends upon what the HOUR or DAY has just delivered, so maybe I should ask, is your love and excitement for life and Jesus Christ growing, glowing? There are days I could have stayed in bed, days, I wonder if I am saved, days that it seems Satan had no one else to focus on but me (make for great pity parties). So, the better question is how’s your life in THIS SEASON?
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