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PRAY WITHOUT CEASING
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 28, 2019 – When I was first born-again 20 years ago, I remember reading the phrase “pray without ceasing” in one of Paul’s letters and wondering how someone could possibly do that. At the time, prayer for me (because I was a Catholic) meant getting down on my knees and repeating vain repetitions that I either memorized, like the “Our Father” and “Hail Mary”, or read straight from a prayer book or prayer card, like a script. I could not understand how people would be able to be down on their knees reciting the Our Father or Hail Mary 24/7 and still carry out their daily duties, but I gave it my best shot. I bought rosary beads, chaplets, and any other prayer beads I could find at the Catholic store and started the daily recitations on my knees. Morning, noon and night, at pre-set times, you could find me in my room, mumbling vain repetitions and counting out beads as eagerly as Matthew had counted coins at his tax collector job before being sprung by Jesus. (more…)
TOP TEN (PLUS ONE) TRAITS OF NEWLY BORN-AGAIN CHRISTIANS
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 27, 2019 – I don’t follow celebrity news, but sometimes celebrity news follows me when I log onto my various email accounts. Because of my Internet searches for “abornagainbeliever” (my website with WordPress), I am bombarded with “recommended for you” suggestions that include “born again”. Recently, as some of you might know, some high-profile celebrities have claimed to have become born-again Christians or to have had a “spiritual experience” that they attribute to God. Whether or not these experiences are genuine spiritual rebirths is for God to know. However, for your edification, and with a nod to celebrity cultural norms, I’ve compiled a “Top 10″ (plus 1) list of the main characteristics of a newly born-again follower of Jesus. You can compare these characteristics against the celebrity reports and draw your own conclusions. (more…)
TEACHING AND PREACHING THE WORD
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 26, 2019 – What did Jesus teach the people in the synagogues during his ministry years? (more…)
LOVE and HELL
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 25, 2019
LOVE
People want to love and be loved.
People also want to love and be loved by God.
We are hardwired to love and be loved, whether we believe in God or not, just as we are hardwired to love and be loved by God, whether we believe in him or not.
We are hardwired to love and be loved, and we are hardwired to love God and be loved by him.
Show me someone who claims he or she doesn’t want to love or be loved, and I’ll show you a liar.
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Fathers report an instantaneous surge of love for their children when they hold them in their arms for the first time. They say they “fell in love” with the child. That indescribable joy, packaged as the love of a parent for a child, is engendered by God so that children will know unconditional love, however imperfect. Mothers typically develop that love early in their pregnancy so it is already full-blown by the time the child arrives. A parents’ love is a stand-in for God’s love until the children are old enough to decide whether or not they want to receive God’s love and love him in return.
When we come to God as a follower of Jesus, our love for God starts to grow. That part of us that is hard-wired to love God is sparked into life. Sometimes it explodes as a full-blown love, depending on the circumstances, but mostly it grows over time the more we get to know and depend on God: our love for God and our faith in God grow together. (more…)
THAT FOUR-LETTER F-WORD
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 21, 2019 – You know the one I mean – the one that most Christians don’t want to hear and would rather you not mention. In fact, that four-letter f-word is all but censored in most churches these days so as not to offend anyone’s delicate sensibilities. Jesus, on the other hand, was a huge fan of the f-word, doing it whenever he found time and reminding his followers that they’d be doing it someday, too. (more…)
PUTTING THE HAPPINESS CART BEFORE THE DOING-GOD’S-WILL HORSE
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 19, 2019 – No other age in Western history has been as obsessed with finding happiness as our current one.
And is it just a coincidence that no other age in Western history has been as estranged from God as our current one?
Most people today (including Christians) believe that happiness is a human right, and so they spend all of their time and money pursuing things they think will make them happy.
But if that to-do list of things doesn’t include “doing God’s will”, their efforts will be in vain. They’ll just be putting the happiness cart before the doing-God’s-will horse, which will get them nowhere fast. (more…)
JUDAS IS CARROTS
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, October 19, 2019 – When I first started reading the Bible 20 years ago, it struck me as odd that the disciples didn’t know who Jesus was referring to when he said that one of them would betray him. It seems that Judas Iscariot’s wicked ways had flown under the radar of everyone except Jesus. How was that possible? How could the disciples, who had some level of discernment, not see Satan’s very apprentice living and moving among them? (more…)
ARE YOU LOW LIKE JOHN THE BAPTIST OR HIGH LIKE JESUS?
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, September 29, 2019 – The relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus goes much deeper than mere blood. They were cousins, but we only hear of them interacting in the womb, at Jesus’ baptism, and then shortly before John’s beheading. We can assume that, as cousins, they spent time together growing up and then later, as young men, probably passionately debated scriptures, with Jesus (the younger by a few months) likely besting his older cousin at every turn. At Jesus’ baptism at the River Jordan, John is obviously in awe of his younger cousin and openly considers himself to be so low as to not even to be worthy to put Jesus’ sandals on his feet. When John tells Jesus that he should be the one getting baptized, Jesus gently chides him to go ahead with the baptism in order to fulfill scripture. We catch there a glimpse of the younger cousin again schooling his older cousin.
Jesus calls John the greatest of those born of women, but then also calls him lowest in the kingdom (that is, born of the Spirit). What did Jesus mean by that? It almost sounds like an insult, just as John sending his disciples to Jesus to ask if he were actually “the one” sounds like an insult. Did the cousins have a falling-out that is not recorded in scripture? (more…)
GRAB YOUR WHIPS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BECAUSE YOU STILL CANNOT SERVE GOD AND MAMMON
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, September 18, 2019 – Have you lost your way?
Christianity has lost its way, just as assuredly as the Jews in Jesus’ day had lost their way.
Most Christians use Old Testament measures to gauge prosperity – wealth, health, and longevity – even though Jesus was poor, famished, and died young.
Most Christians also point to the importance of having strong family ties, even though Jesus told us that our worst enemies will be those under our own roof, and that your real family are those who do the will of God, whether they’re related to you by blood or marriage or not.
There’s a profound disconnect between what is being sold to us as Christianity and what Jesus demonstrated as Christianity.
These disconnects are temptations, and we need to see them as such. (more…)
“HOW CAN I KNOW IF I’M BORN AGAIN?”
ROCKINGHAM, Nova Scotia, September 17, 2019 – Have you ever heard someone ask: “How can I know if I’m born-again?” To me, that’s a strange question that I would turn on its head and reframe as: “How can you NOT know if you’re born-again!” When a soul undergoes spiritual rebirth (is healed, is made whole), it’s such a revolution that there is zero doubt what has taken place. It affects every part of your being, and the impression it makes on you is so primal and so deeply entrenched that you’re more certain of your rebirth than you are of your name and date of birth. (more…)
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 