LRC, Houston - the weekends-free church in Houston, Texas

I don’t know HOW to say this, but let me try nonetheless.

There is so much about the Christian walk that I don’t understand and probably will never grasp. I got started on the wrong foot in many ways. Being born white, male, in the Mid-West, and growing up in a Baptist community, I came to the table of life with a whole backpack full of prejudices. Regardless of where you grew up, and how, you have maybe even a suitcase of bias, prejudices, and though they are different than mine, they don’t serve you any better than mine did (and somewhat still do) me.

I’m not you, so let me share mine and see if we get a DNA match.
Continue reading ‘DNA Match’

Jansenism is still alive and well in America. Pope Innocent X might have condemned it and told Catholics to not embrace it, but many Prostestants and unbelievers today still practice some version of it. Once a week you can usually see some Islamic sect dancing and beating themselves with whips and chains (across their backs). Or, in a more dramatic fashion, you’ll see people repeatedly hit themselves in the forehead with the flat surface of the sword: until their head bleed or the migraine is unbearable.

I am a dirty rotten sinner saved by grace!

Yeah, weren’t we all at one time. But, that’s past tense now.

Unfortunately the church is still into control- we all are! If we can’t control it or someone, we don’t want to play the game. Sad! But the truth is, the church controls people through “sin management”. We’re reminded Sunday after Sunday about how bad, evil, and sinful we are. Catholics have it even worse. They can’t take communion without confessing sin. Confess sin, get a wafer. Confess more sin, get another wafer. You’d think our name was Pavlov.

Isn’t the message that Jesus brought about living a Kingdom life?

The old sacrificial system was done away with at the Cross. Have you not read Hebrews? Things are now BETTER! What the Muslims do, beating themselves physically, we do mentally and spiritually. Let me give you a marvelous insight- at least for me it is. I (we-you) don’t have to spill OUR BLOOD to get to God. God sent His Son to spill HIS BLOOD, for us! Can you say AWESOME and thank you God?

There is absolutely NOTHING that I can do to be worthy. Jesus has already done it. The deal has been made, the covenant ratified, and the gift of grace is there every moment of every day for us to unwrap and embrace. God is not out there and unaware of who we are: Jesus is in heaven, at God’s metaphorical right hand, reminding Him of what He, Jesus, did 2000 years ago.

How could, can anyone reject such love?
Continue reading ‘Earn It’

I want to transition off of my commentary that I just wrote on that other site I am a daily slave to- transformhouston.com wherein I threw out a bunch of statistics that show how consumer-oriented we are. But, you know that don’t you? Right after 9-11, you got the message.

BUY!

Get out there in the shopping malls and show the terrorists that they can’t keep us from spending, buying, exchanging! We won’t let those radical Islamists keep us from what has made America great: the stock market! There is a grain of truth in everything you know. But we can’t live on a a grain of rice, though we continually try.
Continue reading ‘Value’

Today was a good day and a tough day- in the Spirit. He was gentle with me as I listened to Him just outside that proverbial “woodshed”. I HEARD so many things that I don’t know where to begin. The problem with hearing and knowing is that you are now responsible for such.

Some of the things I heard were: Someone has to tell my people, the truth must be told even if to your hurt, private feelings must take a back seat to my Kingdom principles, the world needs some Kingdom living epistles, and so on. Great, and I suppose I’m being called to have my head chopped off, right? It’s as though all that has gone before was wasted, but, I know that’s not the case.

What blesses me though are the questions and emails that I get every day that tell me people are SEEING. The Holy Spirit is breaking through to many. Here’s three brief words from three different people that emailed me today……………….
Continue reading ‘Three Emails’

I cherish and embrace as richly and as deeply as I can, my Christian faith: and community. I began, started, founded LRC some 19 years ago for many reasons, not the least being the over-played religious standard: God told me to. Well, I wouldn’t go that far. The more accurate expression would be I FELT I had HEARD His voice say, “It’s time to move out”. From that first step a lot of other steps followed, and who knows how many were of Him?

Don’t hear doubt, hear reverence for using His name, when I’m not sure.
Continue reading ‘My Christian Faith’